Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/928

 916 FEDERAL REPORTER. �a high mna blowing towards the Orleans shore. In another place he says this was necessary to avoid a tug and barges •which were in front of the Morgan. It is trae that he says in his redirect examination that this change was before the signal, but this is unsustained by any other testimony, and there was not the slightest reason for such a change at that time. Mr. Phillips, the other pilot, who was in the wheel- house of the Morgan, says "the Morgan started to go from the shipping — to run from it," when the Cannon was about abreast of the Morgan's pilot-house. The other evidence dis- tinctly shows there was not a high wind blowing to the shore, nor were the tug and barge in the way of the Morgan. This tug was the Mahomet. With a barge in' tow she was goiug up the river, and the decided weight of the testimony is that she was two and a half or three squares above the Morgan, and inside of her course, There was much conflict in the testimony as to the distance the Morgan was running from the shipping at the time the Cannon came up. Oaptain Albert Stine -thinks his boat, the Morgan, was ronning from the rfiipping a distance of 125 feet. Other of claimant's witr nesses put the distance less, and some of the libellants moW. I should think, from ail of the evidence, the distance was from 100 to 120 feet. It seems, however, to be the universal testi- mony that she was sufficiently far from the ^shipping to be safe if she were not crowded in. Whether she would have been safe had she been crowded in is not material to the present inquiry, because I do not find from the testimony that she was crowded in. The material inquiry is, did the safety of the shipping require that she should tum out from the shore ? and I think the evidence proves that it did not. It is quite probable to those on the Morgan, who did not have the opportanity of obaerving accurately the courses of the boats, it looked as if the Cannon was running across the bow of the Morgan. This would be the appearance from the Morgan, though in fact she might be running towards and into the Cannon; nor is the character of the blows which these boats received inconsistent with the conclusion that the Morgan ran into the Cannon. ��� �