Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/934

920

1.

In Admiralty.

Mr. Hatch, for Murphy and other libellants.

Mr. Batchelder, for Gilson and Campbell.

Mr. Page and Frank Goodwin, for claimants.

, D. J. The schooner Mary S. Hontvet, of about 72 tons burden, early in the morning of August 21, 1880, starting on a fishing voyage from Portsmouth harbor to the Western banks, got upon the rocks at "Pull-and-be-damned point" in the river. Her owners, upon being informed of her position, went, some of them, to her assistance. While they were attempting to relieve her with the steam-tug Bateman, she slid off the rocks into deep water and began to sink. She had on board 100 hogsheads of salt. The owners then went for another tug and attempted to tow the vessel to Newcastle, but could not do so, and she sank in the river with only her mast-heads out of water.

In the afternoon of the same day she began to float, and to drift with the tide towards the ocean. The owners were aware of this, but made no effort, with the Bateman or otherwise, to hold her, or to bring her to shore. Late in the afternoon of the same day Murphy, one of the libellants, having in charge a small schooner, called the Little Kate, which Mr. Tredick, one of the claimants, owned, proposed to Mr. Tredick to go with him in quest of the Hontvet. This Mr. Tredick declined to do. Murphy, however, taking with him Mr. White, another libellant, went to search after the abandoned vessel with the Little Kate. They found her about half way between "Whale's-back" and the shoals, some three and a half miles at sea. She was on her side, rolling in the seaway, with her masts rising and falling, and the sea making a breach over her. There was a thick fog, with the wind to the south-east, some "chop," but not a heavy sea. After sailing round the Hontvet two or three times to find a place