The plaintiff through her witnesses attacked the general structure of the _Alert_, and said that the ship was unsafe to go on the high seas. It was contended that the vessel was designed and intended for the Bay service, that her engines were much more aft than they were generally placed in ocean-going steamers, and this much was generally admitted. It was said that this put the vessel down by the stern, and raised her bows. Certainly, if the bows were in the air greater play was given to the waves and the wind, and if the wind and weather were on the port-side, there would be great difficulty in bringing the ship up to the wind. The plaintiff brought a great body of evidence in support of that view; but on the other hand the defendants brought a great body of evidence to rebut it. Some very experienced witnesses had been called on both sides. Captain Bicknell, a coasting pilot of large experience, gave his evidence very well, and was most emphatic in condemning the ship as totally unfitted to go to sea; a mere “cockle boat” he called her. In addition to expert evidence called to prove that the ship was sea-worthy, the defendants put in certain certificates, some from Lloyd’s in England, and some from the Marine Board here. These certificates in his (His Honour’s) opinion were not conclusive of sea-worthiness—he would reserve that point—but they were entitled to very great weight. The ship was built at Glasgow in 1877, and the greatest care seemed to have been taken in constructing her. She was surveyed by Lloyd’s, and certified as fit to carry perishable cargo to any part of the world. She came out here not with steam, but under sail, rigged as a barque. She ran in the Bay trade a long time. In the Bay, with a strong south-east wind blowing, there were occasionally fair seas to be encountered; but these were merely pigmy teapot seas as compared with those outside. Talk of waves! One might as well compare a millpond to the Bay as compare the Bay waves to those to be met with outside on the high seas. Whoever heard of a ship being wrecked by heavy seas in Hobson’s Bay? Anyone who had encountered “great guns” in rounding the Horn in a sailing ship, or who had seen the seas off the Cape of Good Hope, would not think of big seas being found in our Bay. Then there was the question of cargo. This was one of the plaintiff’s strongest points. Some witnesses said that it did not matter what cargo the ship had, she would have gone to the bottom all the same. The certificates did not touch this question. They were strong evidence that the vessel was sea-worthy, so far as structure and build were concerned, but did not touch the question of neglect on the part of the captain to put the ship in a sea-worthy condition before she started on her voyage. The plaintiff said that, having regard to the ship’s build and her tendency to be unstable by reason of her build, she should have been loaded and trimmed with the greatest care and caution,