Although the vessels of this company are principally engaged out of Liverpool, some of them sail from London and Antwerp, calling frequently at Havre and Lisbon in the course of their trade with the ports of Brazil and River Plate, Pernambuco, and Buenos Ayres. One of them proceeds monthly, up the River Parana to Rosario, and, occasionally, others return from Brazil to the United States with cargoes of coffee. Three are permanently engaged in the service of the Government of Brazil for the conveyance of mails between Rio de Janeiro and the southern ports, while others maintain a direct line of communication with Brazil and Antwerp. The Company is also under contract with the British Government to dispatch, on the 20th of each month, a steamer with the mails from Liverpool to Bahia, Rio Janeiro, Monte Video, and Buenos Ayres, returning with a monthly mail from each of these ports. Steamers are likewise dispatched on the 3rd, 10th, and 12th of each month to the other ports, with extra vessels at such dates as the requirements of the trade may demand. The last new steamer, the _Herelius_, of 2610 tons register, was built by Messrs. Andrew Leslie and Company, Hebburn-on-Tyne, and her engines, of 300 horse-power nominal, are by Messrs. Robert Stephenson and Co., Newcastle; she is an excellent specimen of a merchant-steamer, being 345 feet in length, 37 feet in breadth, and 27 feet depth of hold from maindeck, with a large capacity for cargo, and a speed on the measured or trial mile of from 11 to 12 knots an hour, on a moderate consumption of fuel. Though, by an ancient Act of Parliament, the responsibility of shipowners has been limited—no doubt for the purpose of encouraging navigation—to the value of the ship and freight, numerous companies of shipowners have been formed, under the Limited Liability Act of 1862, consisting of a few individuals, as in the case of Messrs. Lamport and Holt’s line, for the purpose of conducting different branches of maritime commerce. Many of these are larger and more important undertakings than the great bulk of the public steam navigation companies, and have generally proved more successful from the fact that their managing directors usually hold themselves a very large amount of capital invested in them. To some of these I shall have occasion to refer hereafter. In the meantime, I must invite the attention of my readers to the trade with the East, as now conducted by steam-vessels. FOOTNOTES: