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![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0272 and id is 1 raw text is: HODGKINSON V. FERNIE
[415] SIR G. E. HODGKINSON, KNT., v. FERNIE AND ANOTHER.
April 28th, 1857.
[S. C. 26 L. J. C. P. 217; 3 Jur. N. S. 818. See The Tasmania, 1888, 13 P. D. 118.
Referred to, Landauer v. Asser, [1905] 2 K. B. 187.]
Semble, that the owner of a transport hired by government for the purpose of assisting
in a warlike expedition, is not responsible for damage done to another transport
forming part of the same expedition, where such damage results from the master's
obedience to orders of the officer under whose immediate command he sails.-A.
and B. were respectively owners of vessels which with many others were taken up
by government for the conveyance of troops upon an expedition of war in the Black
Sea: the transports were towed by steamers to their destination, each steamer
having attached to her two transports, the masters of which were under her
immediate order and control: the commander of the steamer to which B.'s vessel
and another were attached, on reaching the anchoring ground in the evening, having
dropped his anchor, desired the masters of his tows to hold on by their warps or
hawsers; but, in the course of the night, a storm arose which caused B.'s vessel to
swing with violence against A.'s vessel, whereby it was considerably damaged. In
an action for the damage so caused, the learned judge who tried the cause told the
jury that B. would not be responsible if the injury complained of resulted from a
strict obedience on the part of the master to the orders of the officer in command of
the steamer; but that, assuming that the master was justified by the orders he
received in abstaining from anchoring in the first instance, it was for them to con-
sider whether he had not been guilty of negligence and want of good seamanship
in continuing to hold on by his warp under the altered state of circumstances,-
there being some evidence to shew that the accident might have been averted if he
had dropped his anchor when the storm came on :-Held, no misdirection.
This was an action for an injury to a vessel belonging to the plaintiff through a
collision with a vessel of the defendants.
The declaration stated that the defendants, by their servants, so negligently and
unskilfully navigated and managed a ship of the defendants called the Courier,
then being navigated and managed by their servants, that the said ship struck and
came into collision with the plaintiff's ship the Sultana, by which the said last-
mentioned ship was greatly and permanently damaged, and the plaintiff was put to
and incurred great expense in repairing her, and was deprived of the use of her a long
time, and thereby lost great profits which he would otherwise have made by her.
Claim 10001.
The defendants pleaded,-first, not guilty,-secondly, that the said ship was not
at the time of the collision navigated and managed by the servants of the defendants,
in manner and form as alleged. Issue thereon.
The cause was tried before Cockburn, C. J., at the sittings in London after
Michaelmas Term, 1856. It appeared that the plaintiff's vessel, the Sultana, and the
defend-[416]-ants' vessel, the Courier, were both chartered by government, and
formed part of a fleet of transports employed on the 9th of September, 1855, in the
conveyance of troops on an expedition of war from Varna to Eupatoria, in the Black
Sea; that the fleet consisted of forty-two sailing and twenty-one steam-vessels, each
of the latter having two of the former in tow and subject to her orders and control,
the whole being under the superior orders of the admiral; that the fleet started in
seven divisions, each consisting of six sailing vessels and three steamers; that the
defendants' vessel, the Courier, and a vessel called the Orient, under the guidance
of a Queen's steamer called the Fury, commanded by Captain Chambers, formed
the rearmost vessels of the light or northernmost division, and the plaintiff's vessel,
the Sultana, together with the Sir Robert Sale, under the guidance of the
Hydaspes, a hired steamer, commanded by her ordinary master, formed part of the
third division; that the instructions issued to the fleet at starting, were, that, on
arrival at the place where they were to anchor, the position of each division was to
be at four cables' length from that next to it; that, when the fleet arrived within
about twenty miles of Eupatoria, a signal was made from the flag-ship for the fleet to
anchor, whereupon most of the vessels, the transports as well as the tugs, dropped
2 C. B. (N. S.) 415.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0272&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)