The CITY OF DUBLIN sailed from Dublin on her maiden voyage to Liverpool on Saturday, the 20th March, 1824. She anticipated, by about six months, the operations of the Dublin and Liverpool Steam Navigation Co., whose first steamer, the LIFFEY, 305 tons burthen, and 110 h.p., did not sail until the 13th September following. In December of the same year (1824) the MERSEY joined the LIFFEY, and in the July following the COMMERCE was added to the Navigation Co.’s fleet. The COMMERCE was considerably larger than either of her predecessors, and was launched from the yard of Messrs. Grayson and Leadley, Trentham Street, Liverpool. Her (late) Majesty’s steamship LIGHTNING sailed from Algiers for home on the 27th July, 1824, calling at Gibraltar and Lisbon. She remained at Lisbon two days taking in coal, and finally arrived at Plymouth nineteen days after leaving Algiers. The LIGHTNING was one of the first vessels in the British Navy to be supplied with steam power. Two still existing and influential Steamship Companies were established this year. The General Steam Navigation Co., of London, and the Belfast Steam-Packet Co., afterwards merged into the Belfast Steamship Co., Limited, of Belfast. The competition between the Steam-Packet Companies engaged in the Scotch and North of Ireland passenger trade had become so keen, that in the summer of 1825 the steamers from Belfast to Glasgow lowered their fares to 2s. for 1st cabin, 6d. for 2nd cabin, and carried deck passengers for nothing. On the Dublin and Liverpool station competition was nearly as severe, one steamer sailing in the autumn of 1825 with upwards of 700 passengers carried at 6d. each. Under these adverse circumstances, the proprietors of the Dublin and Liverpool Steam Navigation Co. deemed it prudent to make terms with their more powerful competitor, the City of Dublin Steam-Packet Co. The managers of the latter company, early in the following year (1st February, 1826), purchased the Navigation Co.’s steamers, and increased the capital of their own company to £250,000, in shares of £100 each. The Press communications exchanged between the owners of the rival steam-packets must have been extremely entertaining to the citizens of Glasgow of that period. The following extraordinary literary effusion, from the owners of the steamboat SWIFT, was published in the “Glasgow Herald,” of the 30th June, 1825:—