At the present moment, notwithstanding the large increase in the shipping—principally American—provided for the trade, berths, and these at very high prices, are most difficult to be got, unless detention is submitted to. Moreover, a great change has taken place in the kind of persons emigrating. Last year, the same gentleman informs me, four-fifths of the parties emigrating consisted of substantial small farmers from Ireland and elsewhere, and skilled artisans from this country. This year, a very superior class of English farmers are leaving a land which no longer affords them a living in exchange for their honest industry. The quays of Liverpool daily present a scene, which few thinking men can rejoice in, and which the country will have to regret. The aged as well as the mature, mothers with infants at the breast, and stalwart youths and maidens, going from vessel to vessel, to select that particular one whose departure from our shores will cut for ever their connexion with the country which they have loved, and in which they leave behind the graves of their fathers. It is melancholy to think upon the misery there must be amidst all this activity, with the momentary absence of regret for old scenes, and enjoyment of the new ones, into which these poor people find themselves thrown. Yet we cannot but feel satisfied that they are about to be bettered in condition by the change. The depression complained of, as existing in Liverpool, is by no means confined to the classes immediately connected with the staple commerce of the port, but pervades all classes of the community without exception. The produce of half a world is stored in the warehouses of Liverpool, or floating in her magnificent docks. The capital of her merchants is embarked in every clime, and her shipping crowds every foreign port; yet her industrious population are plunged in suffering and embarrassment, and a portion of them—her labouring classes, pressed down by the influx of pauper competition from the hordes of immigrants from ruined Ireland—are continually upon the verge of actual starvation. It is distressing to witness the shifts to which tradesmen are compelled to resort, from time to time, in order to meet engagements, and to stave off, by sacrifices of their goods, the day of ruin. “Selling off” announcements, under all kinds of pretexts, meet the eye in every direction, and yet tempt in vain. The whole community appear to be economising; and tardily paid bills, and reduced expenditure in the comforts, and even in some of the necessities of life, is the rule, not the exception. The extent to which this is carried, and the suffering existing amongst the middle classes, may be judged of by the fact that it has already affected the incomes of many of the clergy of the town, by diminishing the numbers of their congregations and the yield of pew-rents. In one instance which has been mentioned to me, the income of