THE LAW OF COLLISIONS AT SEA, WITH An Appendix, CONTAINING EXTRACTS FROM THE MERCHANT SHIPPING ACT, 1894, THE REGULATIONS FOR PREVENTING COLLISIONS AT SEA, AND LOCAL RULES OF NAVIGATION FOR THE THAMES, MERSEY, FOURTH EDITION BY R. G. MARSDEN, OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. “Si navis tua impacta in meam scapham damnum mihi dederit quæsitum est LONDON: STEVENS AND SONS, LIMITED, Law Publishers. PREFACE. THERE is no change in the form of the present edition. The Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, and the issue of the Regulations of 1897, have made a revision of the whole work necessary; and a considerable number of American, as well as all the recent English, cases have been added. Of the immense number of American cases, only those illustrating novel facts, or doubtful points of law, or throwing light upon the meaning of the new Regulations, have been referred to. As to the Regulations themselves, it is premature to comment upon the result of the labours of the Washington Conference; but a word of protest against the prolixity of the new rules may be permitted. Every revision of the Regulations has added to their length, until there is danger that what is essential in them may be lost in the cloud of words. An examination of the records of the High Court of Admiralty has enabled the writer to give a summary of the cases by which the rule |