that if Mr. Ponting (who from the earliest moment of the disaster was acting rationally, struggling for his life) observed accurately all that occurred, the steamer getting on her beam ends was to be accounted for by her having been knocked down as by the mere blow of a wave. The plaintiff argued that this itself was evidence that a vessel with so little stability or flotative power as to be capable of being so knocked down was not sea-worthy. The interpretation, however, which his Honour put on the statue assumed that a vessel might be in fact unsea-worthy, but if certified by the board to be sea-worthy no liability would, in the absence of the exceptions already stated, attach to the owner. The contention would then be that those who were presumably best qualified to know had determined that the _Alert_ was sea-worthy, but through no fault of the owner they were mistaken. It was then contended for the plaintiff that whatever the _Alert’s_ condition might have been, within the meaning of the certificate as to construction or equipment, she was loaded so improperly as to destroy any stability she might have possessed, and so imprudently as not to mitigate as far as might have been her constructive difficulty of getting up to the wind which helped to set her on her beam ends. The first of these contentions would, in his Honour’s opinion, if proved, destroy any protection which the board’s certificate gave the owner, because that certificate meant sea-worthiness as long as she was properly loaded. If cargo was put in the _Alert_ in such a fashion that it made her top-heavy, or that it shifted from negligent stowage, that would account for all that happened in fact, and in law it would show that a sea-worthy boat under the certificate was made unsea-worthy by the owner’s agents. The evidence on this point, however, was absolutely inconclusive. It amounted to no more than that an unusually light cargo of bark and furniture went into the ship through her main hold. As to how or where it was stowed there was absolutely nothing to show. A verdict founded on what might be conjectured would be eminently unsatisfactory. But for this contention of the plaintiff his Honour would have thought that a verdict might have been entered at the trial for the defendants as a matter of law. This, however, was a matter of fact, which might be proved in favour of the plaintiff at another trial by other additional evidence. The argument that the cargo should have been stowed as far forward as possible was fallacious as attaching any liability to the defendants. It was not proved as a fact where it was stowed, and from anything that appeared in evidence it might have been stowed right forward. But apart from this the board’s certificate was that the _Alert_ was sea-worthy without cargo. The plaintiff contended that the low freeboard aft was a prominent feature of unsea-worthiness. If then the forty-four tons of cargo as assumed were under the main hatch, that fact must