TRURO, a borough and market-town, in the western division of the hundred of POWDER, county of CORNWALL, 43 miles (S. w. by W.) from Launceston, and 260 (W. S. W.) from London: the borough contains 2712 inhabitants, which number only forms about a third part of the population of the town, which extends into the parishes of St. Clement and Kenwyn. This place is called, in old records, by the different names of Tneueru, Trewroe, Truru, and Truruburgh, each signifying three streets, of which the town is supposed to have originally consisted. The manor belonged, in'1161, to Richard de Lucy, Chief Justice of England' who granted certain privileges to the burgesses, which were confirmed by Reginald Fitz-Henry, Earl of Cornwall, as lord paramount, in the reign of Henry I. In 1410, a petition from Truro was presented to the par- liament, praying that the rent payable to the crown which had been lowered from £ 12. 1. 10 to £2. 10., for a term of years, by the late king, Richard II., in conse quence of their sufferings from pestilence and war, might be so reduced in perpetuity; and stating that, instead of rebuilding their houses, the inhabitants were about to leave the town, which might be considered as the defence of that part of the country from the enemy. During the great civil war, Truro became the headquarters of Sir Ralph Hopton, soon after his arrival in. Cornwall with the king's forces, in 1642; and again in 1646, immediately before his surrender to Sir Thomas Fairfax. Prince Charles, afterwards King Charles II, was here for some time in the winter of 1645, and for a few weeks in the early part of 1647. The town is pleasantly situated in a valley, almost in the centre of the mining district, at the confluence of two small rivers, latterly called the Kenwyn and the St, Allen, which, with a creek of the river Fal, form a body of water sufficient, in spring tides, to enable vessels of one hundred tons' burden to sail up to the town. A considerable increase of buildings has taken place of late years, and it is now handsome and well built: the streets are partially paved, and lighted with gas, the ex-, pense being defrayed by an assessment on each house, and the inhabitants are well supplied with water, a stream running through the principal streets. A county library was established in 1792, and a Literary Society, called the Cornwall Institution, with a valuable museum, more recently j there is also a neat assembly-room at the High Cross, which is convertible into a theatre, Truro is a place of considerable trade; its principal manufactures are carpets and paper, and there is an iron-foundry. The chief exports consist of tin and copper-ore; and the imports are, iron, coal, and timber, for the mines. Block tin is converted into ingots and bars; the former are mostly sent to the East Indies, and the latter to the Baltic and Mediterranean: the best description of crucibles are also made from the china stone. There is a large tin smelting-house on the Falmouth road; another near the Redruth road, containing four furnaces, with a chimney upwards of one hundred and eighty feet high, with which the flues of the furnaces communicate; and one on the southern side of the town. The markets are on Wednesday and Saturday; the former is a corn market, and both are well supplied with all kinds of provisions; a cattle market has also been recently established, on the first Wednesday in every month; there are cattle fairs on the Wednesday after Mid-Lent Sunday, Wednesday after Whit-Sunday, November 19th, and December 8th; the November fair belongs to the lord of the manor, and is held in a square area near the church; the others are held on Castle-hill, near the town. The charter, under which the corporation derives its authority, was granted by Queen Elizabeth, in 1589: the body corporate consists of a mayo?, four aldermen, and, including the mayor, twenty capital burgesses, the vacancies amongst whom are filled up, by the corporation, from among the inhabitants. Although the bo- rough only comprises that part of the town which forms the parish of St. Mary, the jurisdiction of the corporation, by an act passed in the early part of the last century, extends to a distance of half a mile from the limits of the borough, over the environs. It was for- merly usual, at the election of a mayor, for the town mace to be delivered to the lord of the manor, who retained it until sixpence was paid for every house in the borough; this custom, has ceased, but the sixpence is still exacted from such as occupy certain ancient houses, under the name of Smoke money. The charter states the mayor to be also mayor of Falmouth, and, as such, the corporation formerly exercised jurisdiction over, and received the port dues of, Falmouth harbour; but, early in the last century, this claim was in part successfully resisted by the inhabitants of Falmouth, and the corporation have now authority only over a small portion of the harbour, the extent of which jurisdiction is preserved by the practice of nominally arresting, at this point, in the presence of the members of the corporation, a person for a debt of £999, who is. immediately liberated on bail. The Easter quarter sessions for the county are held here; and petty sessions for the west division of the hundred take place on the first Thursday in every month. Truro is one of the coinage towns, and the coinages have, of late years, with few exceptions, been confined to it and Penzance: the hall, in which the process is carried on, is an ancient edifice, situated at the eastern end of Boscawen-street: the vice-warden's court is held on the first Tuesday of every month. The last stannary parliament, which was continued by adjournments to the following autumn, was held here in 1752. The borough first sent members to parliament in the reign of Edward I.: the right of election is vested in the corporation, and the mayor is the returning officer: the preponderating influence is possessed by the Earl of Falmouth. The living is a discharged rectory, in the archdeaconry of Cornwall, and diocese of Exeter, rated in the king's books at £16, endowed with £200 parliamentary grant, and in the patronage of the Earl of Mount-Edgecumbe. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is a handsome structure of moor-stone, built about the reign of Henry VIII., in the later style of English architecture, with a lofty spire of modern date, unsuited to the prevailing character of the edifice. A chapel of ease to Kenwyn church has been recently erected in Lemonstreet. There are places of worship for Baptists, Bryanites, the Society of Friends, Independents, Wesleyan Methodists, Shouters, and Unitarians. The grammar school is supposed, though not with certainty, to have been founded by a gentleman named Borlase, who resided near the town; the master and usher receive a salary of £25 per annum each. There are two exhibitions, of £30 per annum each, at Exeter College, Oxford, founded for its benefit by the trustees of the charitable bequests of the Rev. St. John Elliot, who died in 1760, Sir Humphrey Davy, the celebrated experimental chemist and natural philosopher, received his education at this school. A charity school, with an endowment of £5 per annum from the same funds, was established here; and there is also a National school for children of both sexes, besides several Sunday schools. An hospital for ten poor housekeepers was founded by Mr. Henry Williams, who died in 1631, and who endowed it with lands now producing about £ 120 per annum; the corporation have the management, and appoint widows only, to each of whom they allow four shillings a week, and some clothing. The county infir- mary, which stands on an elevated and healthy spot, near the town, was opened in 1799, under the patronage of His late Majesty George IV., then Prince of Wales, and is supported by donations and voluntary subscriptions. A convent of Black friars was established, in the latter part of the reign of Henry III., by an ancestor of Rauf Reskiner, who Avas a benefactor to it in the reign of Edward IV.; it was dissolved, with the other monastic establishments, in the reign of Henry VIII. Samuel Foote, of dramatic celebrity, was born here, in a house now the Red Lion Inn, in 1721.