course was changed so as to haul closer
to the land, and this course was pursued until 1:40 P. M., at which time
Captain Turner concluded that it was necessary for him to get his
bearings accurately. This he decided should be done by taking a
four-point bearing, during which procedure the ship was torpedoed. It is
urged that he should have taken a two-point bearing or a cross bearing,
which would have occupied less time, but if, under all the conditions
which appealed to his judgment as a mariner, he had taken a different
method of ascertaining his exact distance and the result would have been
inaccurate, or while engaged in taking a two-point bearing the ship had
been torpedoed, then somebody would have said he should have taken a
four-point bearing. The point of the matter is that an experienced
Captain took the bearing he thought proper for his purposes, and to
predicate negligence upon such a course is to assert that a Captain is
bound to guess the exact location of a hidden and puzzling danger.

[Sidenote: Testimony about the ship's speed.]

Much emphasis has been placed upon the fact that the speed of the ship
was eighteen knots at the time of the attack instead of twenty-four, or,
in any event, twenty-one knots, and upon the further fact (for such it
is) that the ship was not zigzagging as frequently as the Admiralty
advised or in the sense of that advice.

Upon this branch of the case much testimony was taken, (some in camera,
as in the Wreck Commissioners' Court,) and, for reasons of public
interest, the methods of successfully evading submarines will not be
discussed. If it be assumed that the Admiralty advices as of May, 1915,
were sound and should have been followed, then the answer to the charge
of negligence is twofold: (1) that Captain Turner, in taking a
four-point bearing off the Old Head of Kinsale, was conscientiously
exercising his judgment for the welfare of the ship, and (2) that it is
impossible to determine whether, by zigzagging off the Old Head of
Kinsale or elsewhere, the _Lusitania_ would have escaped the German
submarine or submarines.

As to the first answer I cannot better express my conclusion than in the
language of Lord Mersey:

[Sidenote: Lord Mersey's opinion.]

"Captain Turner was fully advised as to the means which in the view of
the Admiralty were best calculated to avert the perils he was likely to
encounter, and in considering the question whether he is to blame for
the c