Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/534

 522 FEDERAL REPORTER. �an attempt to steal a march on him. "The natives," he said, "have taken some of it, and now the first white man that cornes tries to steal the remainder." Captain Eavens, accord- ing to Nye's testimony, made no attempt to justify his pro- ceedings. He declared that he did not wish to have any- thing to do Vith his (Nye's) oil or ship, but he was ordered by Mr. Merrill, if he oould get to St. Lawrence bay ahead of him, "to go for it, and put a man on board at any rate." Captain Eavens' account of this conversation is somewhat different, but Captain Dexter, who testified on the part of the libellant, swears that Eavens stated to him substantially in the same manner the purport of Mr.Merrill's orders. Captain Eavens denies that Nye's letter to the native chief was shown to him, or that he knew that Nye was on his way to the wreck ; but in these deniais I can place no confidence. When he first proposed to Dexter to join him in taking possession of the vessel, the latter was at first inclined to assent. On further reflection he thought it inexpedient or unsafe to mix himself up in the matter. He had already been shown Nye's letter to the natives, and he knew that Nye was coming in the Mount WoUaston to reclaim his property. He doubted, therefore, and not nnnaturally, whether the attempt to get ahead of him would prove successful. He and Eavens had, he testifies, numerous conversations on the subject. He oan- not recollect whether he told Eavens about the letter. "I suppose he was shown it just the same as I was." In this supposition I am inclined to agree with him. But it is incon- ceivable that, in their long conversations on the subject, Dexter should have failed to communicafe to Eavens the substance of the letter that had been shown to him, and the fact that Nye was on his way. If Nye's testimony as to Eavens' statement of his owner's orders be true, the point is beyond dispute; for those orders distinctly contemplate his getting to the bay "ahead of Captain Nye." �Dexter's version of these orders as stated to him by Ea- vens, though Captain Nye's name is not mentioned, evidently contemplates the same contingency. "Eavens told me that Merrill had instructed him that if he got to St. Lawrence ��� �