Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/586

574 FEDERAL REPORTBR. �weather at the time was not tempestuous, the probability of its becoming so, aad the ignorance or knowledge, as the case may be. of the master or other person on board the vessel." �With these points in \iew, I will comment briefly upon the case of the Sandringham. �1. That the ship was in imminent danger, at several periods of the work of saving her, is perfectly plain. Her master, Capt. McKay, had utterly despaired of saving her himself. She had beached at 5 p. M. on the fifth of November. He had left her two hours afterwards to call for help, and did not return until 12 m. the next day. During the early morning of the 6th, when it may have been practicable for him to lay his anchors outside by using the ship's boats, and to have taken measures for pulling her off the beach with a cable, as was actually done in the sequel, he failed to make the effort, and did noth- ing during the 24 hours after the ship had beached, even to prevent her from thumping against the ground. In fact, he did nothing at all for 24 hours, for the help of the ship, except to keep the pumps going part of the time. It is abundantly proved that when the wreckers took charge, whatever might have been the case before, the ship was too deep in the sand, and had too much water in her hold and in the ballast tank, and too much avoirdupois of cargo on her decks, to be got off the beach by tugs or tows of any degree of power. �There was no recourse but to plant anchors out beyond the breakers to lay a cable to them from the ship to lighten her of the burden upon her, and then to pull her off shore — none of which her own master and crew were capable of doing. �The resuit shows that this course had become indispensable at 6 p. M. on the 6th, when the wreckers took charge ; for with all their extraordinary force of men, material, and machinery the wreckers were unable for five days of lightering the ship, and of constant heav- ing on the cable, to wrench the ship out from the dangerous sand- bed in which Capt. McKay left her; and, even on the fifth day, they succeeded in moving her, according to the log-book, only 30 feet.* That the condition of ship and cargo was hopeless without the aid of the wreckers, is shown by her master's failure to do anything for her relief for 24 hours after the beaching ; by his earnest calls for helpi from Norfolk; and by leaving his ship with her crew to seek Personal safety, apparently in despair of her, 24 hours after the �*See note on page 565, where it is conjectured that the second mate meant yards or fathoms when he wrote feet in the log-book. ��� �