Page 83 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 32 - 36

your Lordship is wholly incomplete on this part of the case. When this Enquiry was instituted this question was not formulated. No evidence was directed to ascertaining what vessels were in the vicinity. The only evidence before the Court is the evidence of vessels which were provided with and were, in fact, using the Marconi apparatus. We know the names of a number of vessels that were somewhere in this neighbourhood because we have heard the names in connection with these Marconi messages and some of the Masters of those steamers have as a result been called as witnesses. But there are a great many - there must have been other steamers navigating in this busy highway - which were not provided with Marconi apparatus, and which were not, in fact, if they were provided with it, using the Marconi apparatus, just as the “Californian” was not during the midnight hours; and unless they had Marconi apparatus we are not able to ascertain their names. No attempt has apparently been made by the Board of Trade to obtain a list of the vessels which were somewhere in this neighbourhood on the night in question; information which no doubt it would be difficult to obtain; but if it had been obtained your Lordship might have been able to get the name of the vessel which I can do no more than describe, a vessel which was apparently bound to Europe, which appeared to be a tramp steamer, which was not provided with Marconi apparatus, and apparently did not use or did not understand Morse signalling. We can only describe the vessel we saw; we cannot put a name to her, and we have not got this vessel before the Court. There is no reason why this vessel should have come before this Court. The circumstances of the “Californian” are such as I think would rather induce Masters to keep away from the Court; they have excellent reasons for keeping away rather than for coming here to say that they were in the vicinity and had an opportunity of rendering assistance, but for some reason or another they were not, in fact, able to do so. The steamers seen by the “Californian” or the “Titanic” may have been either of the two which are mentioned in the deposition of the Master of the “Carpathia.” Now, may I refer your Lordship again to the deposition of the Master of the “Carpathia,” on page 746, when he speaks of two vessels other than the “Mount Temple,” which he saw at or about five o’clock in the morning - one a four-masted steamer with one funnel and the other a two-masted steamer with one funnel. We do not know the names of either of those two steamers; we do not know to whom they belonged, where they were bound, or where they came from; but clearly these two vessels were at this time near the neighbourhood of the scene of the “Titanic’s” loss. It may well have been that the vessel which was seen from the “Californian” was one or other of these two vessels, and it may have been that the vessel which the Fourth Officer of the “Titanic” saw was one or other of these two vessels. Further, the evidence from the “Californian” shows that there were three, or possibly four, other steamers in this neighbourhood whose names we do not know. The Master described at Question 7400 a vessel which he say - a two-masted steamer with a pink funnel and a black top, apparently steering to the North-West. Stone, the Chief Officer, at Question 8017, saw, just after 4 o’clock, a steamer with two masthead lights heading to the Eastward or North-East; and at Question 8095 saw three other steamers next morning. Groves, at Question 650, saw a four- masted steamer which he thought afterwards was the “Carpathia,” but he must be wrong about that because, according to the “Carpathia” the “Carpathia” and the “Californian” were not in sight of each other until 8 o’clock in the morning. Therefore the steamer that he saw was probably not the “Carpathia.” At Question 8339 he says he saw two other vessels. That is Groves, my Lord. The Chief Officer, Stewart, says at 4 a.m. he saw two masthead lights at Question 8598, and at 8905 he says that at daylight he saw that she had a yellow funnel, and was not the “Carpathia.” It is impossible for your Lordship to say, that the vessel which the “Californian” saw was not one or other of the two vessels mentioned by the Master of the “Carpathia” or one or other of the