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proceed by sea to foreign ports, they thus might have a double character, that is, of coasting vessels and vessels entitled to go upon the seas to foreign ports. Reference was made to the fact that the Yosemite was enrolled at the port of New York in conformity to Title Fifty of the Revised Statutes, entitled "Regulation of Vessels in Domestic Commerce," and was also licensed in pursuance of chapter two, Title Forty-eight, entitled "Regulations of Commerce and Navigation." And it was said that Title Fifty related exclusively to coasting and fishing vessels, while Title Forty-nine was entitled "Regulations of Vessels in Foreign Commerce." The conclusion was then announced that the Yosemite, being enrolled under the statute relating to coasting vessels, and her license being a coasting license, with the added privilege of being allowed to proceed to foreign ports, it did not seem to allow of reasonable doubt that the Yosemite while navigating the Hudson River was navigating under her license in the character of a coasting vessel.

We are unable to accept this conclusion. While Title Fifty is entitled by way of convenience "Regulation of Vessels in Domestic Commerce," there are many provisions contained under that title relating to vessels engaged in foreign commerce, and among them sections 4322 and 4323, which enable the owner of a coasting vessel to surrender his enrolment and register his vessel, or to surrender his register and take out an enrolment.

The register declares the nationality of a vessel engaged in foreign trade, the enrolment, the national character of a vessel engaged in the home traffic and enables her to procure a coasting license. By section 4318, under the same title, vessels navigating the waters of the northern, northeastern, and northwestern frontiers, otherwise than by sea, may be enrolled and licensed in such form as other vessels, and need not take out a certificate of registry. The Mohawk, 3 Wall. 566.

Ordinarily the terms "coaster" and "coasting vessel" are applied to vessels plying exclusively between domestic ports, and usually to those engaged in domestic trade as distinguished from vessels engaged in the foreign trade or plying between a

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port of the United States and a port of a foreign country. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1.

The mere fact that an ocean-going steamer may touch at some other port of the United States, after leaving her port of departure, would not make her a coaster, and this is recognized by section 4337, which is another of the sections included in Title Fifty worthy of notice.

Pleasure-yachts, designed as models of naval architecture, are not coasters in any statutory sense, for they are not allowed to transport merchandise or carry passengers for pay, and we do not think it reasonable to construe the words of the statute applicable to coasters as applicable to them in view of their character and the legislation upon the subject taken together.

As we have remarked, vessels engaged in domestic commerce may be transferred to the class of vessels authorized to sail to foreign ports by a change from an enrolment to a register; but, in the case of yachts, the statute provides that when entitled to be enrolled as American vessels, they may be authorized to proceed from port to port of the United States, and also by sea to foreign ports, so that, by a simple license, being mere pleasure-boats, not authorized to transact business, they may sail to either, but their essential character as oceangoing steamers, if they are such, remains the same, whether they are actually navigating from port to port of this country or to ports abroad.

The Yosemite was enrolled in 1881, and in May, 1882, took out the license which authorized her to proceed by sea to foreign ports and also from port to port in the United States. The privilege of doing both was granted, and her license no more authorized her to proceed to domestic ports, with the added privilege of going to foreign ports, than to proceed to foreign ports with the added privilege of navigating between domestic ports. She could do both, and to enable yachts to do so was the design and express language of the

statute.

We have not deemed it necessary to discuss the supposed bearing of the act of February 28, 1871, 16 Stat. 440, 454, c.

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100, referred to by defendant in error, or the acts of 1864, 13 Stat. 58, c. 69, and of 1866, 14 Stat. 227, c. 234, as substantially the same question would arise under those acts, and the obscurity, if any, is not in the revised law.

Nor have we felt called upon to refer to the acts of March 3, 1885, 23 Stat. 438, c. 354, or that of August 19, 1890, 26 Stat. 320, c. 802, as this collision occurred in 1882.

We hold that Rule seven was not applicable to the Yosemite, and that therefore the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the judgment of the Supreme Court, which approved the instruction of the learned trial judge, (to which exception was duly saved,) that "the Yosemite, upon that occasion, was bound to have those lights which I have described to you as central range lights, and the absence of those statutory signals was, upon her part, negligence."

(2) In addition to the rules for preventing collisions, prescribed by section 4233, it was provided by section 4412 that "the board of supervising inspectors shall establish such regulations to be observed by all steam-vessels in passing each other, as they shall from time to time deem necessary for safety." The rules laid down by the latter as thus authorized have the force of statutory enactment, and their construction, (when put in evidence as they were in this case,) as well as that of the rules under section 4233, is for the court, whose duty it is to apply them as matter of law upon the facts of a given case. They are not mere prudential regulations, but binding enactments, obligatory from the time that the necessity for precaution begins, and continuing so long as the means and opportunity to avoid the danger remains. The Dexter, 23 Wall. 69. Obviously they must be rigorously enforced in order to attain the object for which they were framed, which could not be secured if the masters of vessels were permitted to indulge their discretion in respect of obeying or departing from them. Nevertheless it is true that there may be extreme cases where departure from their requirements is rendered necessary to avoid impending peril, but only to the extent that such danger demands. The John L. Hasbrouck, 93 U. S. 405; The Sunnyside, 91 U. S. 208; The

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Johnson, 9 Wall. 146; The City of Washington, 92 U. S. 31; The Voorwarts & Khedive, 5 App. Cas. 876; The Byfoged Christensen, 4 App. Cas. 669.

And while under Rule twenty-four, in construing and obeying the rules, due regard must be had to all dangers of navigation and to any special circumstances which may exist in any particular case, rendering a departure from them necessary in order to avoid immediate danger, the burden of proof lies on the party alleging that he was justified in such departure. The Agra, L. R. 1 P. C. 501; The General Lee, Irish L. R. 3 Eq. 155. Indeed, in The Agra, it was ruled that not only must it be shown that the departure at the time it took place was necessary in order to avoid immediate danger, but also that the course adopted was reasonably calculated to avoid that danger. And it is the settled rule in this court that when a vessel has committed a positive breach of statute, she must show not only that probably her fault did not contribute to the disaster, but that it could not have done so. The Pennsylvania, 19 Wall. 125, 136; Richelieu Navigation Co. v. Boston Ins. Co., 136 U. S. 408, 422.

Obedience to the rules is not a fault even if a different course would have prevented the collision, and the necessity must be clear and the emergency sudden and alarming before the act of disobedience can be excused. Masters are bound to obey the rules and entitled to rely on the assumption that they will be obeyed, and should not be encouraged to treat the exceptions as subjects of solicitude rather than the rules. The Oregon, 18 How. 570.

By Rule nineteen, "if two vessels under steam are crossing so as to involve risk of collision, the vessel which has the other on her own starboard side shall keep out of the way of the other."

By the eighteenth, if two vessels under steam are meeting end on or nearly end on, so as to involve risk of collision, the helms of both must be put to port so that each may pass on the port side of the other.

This is repeated in Rule 1 of the inspectors' rules, and it is provided not only that when steamers are thus approaching

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each other, it shall be the duty of each to pass to the right, or port side of the other, but that the pilot of either may be first in determining to pursue this course, and thereupon shall give as a signal of his intention one short and distinct blast of his whistle, which the pilot of the other vessel shall answer by a similar blast, and thereupon said steamers shall pass to the port side of each other.

By Rule 2, when steamers are approaching each other in an oblique direction, (as shown in fourth situation,) they shall pass to the right of each other as if meeting "head and head," or nearly so, and the signals by whistles shall be given and answered promptly as in that case specified.

By Rule 3, if, when steamers are approaching each other, the pilot of either vessel fails to understand the course or intention of the other, whether from signals being given or answered erroneously, or from other causes, the pilot, if in doubt, shall immediately signify the same by giving several short and rapid blasts of the steam whistle, and if the vessels shall have approached within half a mile of each other, both shall be immediately slowed until the proper signals are given, answered, or understood, and until the vessels shall have passed.

It seems to us that these rules were strictly applicable, and were disregarded by the Vanderbilt. When the plaintiff rested, the defendant moved to dismiss, which was overruled, and it is contended here that on the plaintiff's own showing the Vanderbilt was palpably guilty of negligence which contributed directly to produce the collision, and hence that that motion should have been sustained; but we do not care to pass upon that question, and content ourselves with indicating certain errors in the rulings of the trial court, which appear to us to so essentially deprive the rules of the force which should have been given them as to amount to a decision against rights claimed under the statute of the United States. The speed of the Yosemite was about sixteen miles, and that of the Vanderbilt nine miles, an hour, and they were approaching each other, therefore, at an aggregate speed of twenty-five miles an hour. The pilot of the Vanderbilt testified that he saw the white light of the Yosemite when he was between the ice-houses,