Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/755

 BWBDISH BARK ADOLPH. 741 �h.e found it where ît was reported. I think he may be mis- taken in this, as well as the lookout. His post of observation was not the beat to judge of the bearing of a light from the bow, if it was nearly ahead. Perhaps he was the more likely to be mistaken in the bearing, because the lookout had so reported it, a little to leeward. He undertakes to place it by telling whare he looked for it, under the foot of the foresail. The effort of the memory often supplies circutnstanees har- monious with the general impression of a fact or event, but which are supplied only by the imagination and the associa- tion of ideas. This witness' supposed statement that he saw the red light draw from its bearing on the port bow across to dead ahead, is not the testimony of the witness to a fact, but his inference from his impression of having seen the light the first time a little to port, and afterwards dead ahead. �Assuming, then, that the red light of the Fernande was first seen from the Adolph a little on the starboard bow ; that as it got near, after the Adolph had ported three-fourths ôf a point, it was, as nearly as could be observed, dead ahead ; and that the course of the Adolph, when she first saw the Fernande, was N. W., — it is evident that the vessels were meetmg end on, or nearly end on. To show the red light to the Adolph ahead, or a little on the starboard bow, the Adolph's course being N. W., the Fernande must have headed a little to the southward of S. E. instead of S. E. or S. E. ^ E., as testified to by her master. The master of the Fer- nande says the angle of their courses was very small, and this is doubtless true. Then, under the sixteenth rule of nav- igation, each vessel was required to port, in order that each might pass on the port hand of the other. Eev. St. § 4233. The Adolph ported. The Fernande did not port. I think the proof shows that she starboarded when in close and dangerous proximity to the Adolph, and so brought about the collision. But, while the Fernande must be held to be in fault, the question still remains whether the Adolph was also in fault. It is argued for the libellant that in favor of an innocent third party, the owner of a cargo, on one of the ����