Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/572

£60 FEDERAL SEFOBTEB. �with which tohaul his cable on deck; but none was thrownliim. He thereupon climbed on board and found the crew preparing to go ashore ■with their baggage. On being asked by the second mate if he in- tended to take charge, he answered yes, and asked for help to haul the cable up. The second mate replied that they had all stopped work and were going ashore. �By failing to receive the prompt assistance he counted on, Nelson's line got fouled with the propeller of the ship. This accident made it necessary to return outside for a grappling hook with which to osh up the cable, which he succeeded in doing, and in getting his cable aboard the ship by about 6 p. m. There was much wind and swell. The crew, as before stated, had then left the ship, and were followed shortly afterwards by the offioers, who left their ship by the rocket line of the life-saving station for personal safety from a coming storm. �The log-book of the Sandringham, speaking of the sixth of Novem- ber, says : �"After the wrecking crew came aboard, the ship driving up the beach all the time. Six p. m., set cables tiglit, (meaning the wreckers' anelior cables.) Master and myself went ashore on the rocket apparatus. Weather looking bad and storm signal flying on the life-boat station. A strong breeze from the south-east, with a heavy swell running in." �The Sandringham then lay at an angle of about 45 deg. with the beach, heading northerly, with her port side to land. She lay upon a beach of ane movable sand, which would be rapidly eut out from under the ship by the strong currents and heavy ocean swells which run more or less continually at Cape Henry. She now careened con- siderably on her starboard side, in consequence of the strong current from the eastward which had been running since she stranded. �She was a propeller, and an iron-compartment ship, with five compartments; and she had a ballast tank in her hold of 100 tons capacity, which was then filled with water. She had a visible leak- age around her stern gland, and had taken in several feet of water aft, which the pumps, though kept active, did not effectively reduce. The testimony of the libellant is that there was as much as six or seven feet of water in the hold when the wrecking ofScers, Capts. Nelson and Orrin Baker, first came to the ship about 11 a. m. on the 6th. Just previously to seeing her master on shore, they, in Com- pany with the first mate of the Sandringham, proceeded to ascertain the extent of the leakage below, and found that the water was from six to seven feet deep in the shaft-alley and engine-room, and all the ��� �