Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/256

 242 FEDESAIi BEPOBTEB. �by the fact that, with the wind blowing strongly and directly away from them, those on the Patterson & Bash heard the order given by the master on the sehooner. �It is to be noticed, toc, that the judgment of the master of the Patterson & Bash, as to the effect of the alleged change of course of the sehooner in causing the collision, is not a judg- ment made up after the event, but, unless he swears falsely, was what he at the moment expressed to the mate as soon as he observed the change of course, and before he heard the crash of the collision, and when he could hardly bave been mistaken as to the relative positions of the vessels. �The production of the testimony from on board the Patterson & Bash gives rise to another significant consideration. Those on board of her had been sailing near to the sehooner for an hour or more, keeping nearly under her stem and using her as a guide to steady their course by, yet they say nothing of the torch-light, which, it is said, was exhibited on the sehooner. It is hardly possible that if it was exhibited they should not bave seen it. A torch is not like a fixed light, which must be looked for to be discovered, but it is a blaze which illumines the deck and sails of the vessel exhibiting it, and makes a glare that it hardly seems possible that any one within a mile. or two could fail to take notice of, and which certainly would have been seen by persons on a vessel a little astern and not over a quarter of a mile distant. Evidence was intro- duced by the claimants for the purpose of showing that the wheelsman of the steamer was not a temperate man, and that he had been drinking when he went on duty at 8 o'clock. , This testimony was not very convincing, and the fact bas been strenuously denied, and the charge reçoives no corrob- oration from the actions of the wheelsman as the other testi- mony discloses them. He had been an hour and three-quar- ters on duty at the time of the collision, under the immediate supervision of the captain and second mate, (the captain hav- ing been in the pilot-house until some 10 minutes before the •collision,) and, if the wheelsman had f ailed to undersi and and -execute the orders given him, or to bave kept the steamer steady on her course, it would have been quickly detected, and ����