The town contains more than 1100 inhabitants; its principal support, if not its origin, according to some authors, was derived from the resort of pilgrims and other religious devotees to the neighbouring sacred edifice on Saint Michael's Mount; but its name was indisputably derived from the Jews who traded here several centuries ago, and held an annual _market_ for selling various commodities, and purchasing tin, and other merchandize in return. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth it obtained a charter, vesting its government in a mayor, eight aldermen, and twelve capital burgesses, with a power to hold a weekly market, and two annual fairs. In the preamble to this charter it is stated "that Marghaisewe was a trading borough town of great antiquity, and that it suffered considerable dilapidation in the days of Edward VI., when a number of rebellious people entered, and took possession of the town, and laid many of the buildings in ruin." From this disaster the town does not appear to have ever recovered, while from the growing importance of Penzance, the suppression of the Priory, and the loss of the Pilgrims, from whom it derived its principal resources, its consequence gradually declined, until at length it dwindled into its present condition. It has been asserted on good authority, that under this charter of Elizabeth, the town formerly sent members to Parliament, and _Dr. Borlase_ in his manuscripts, mentions the names of _Thomas Westlake_, and _Richard Mills, Esqrs._ as those of the two members who were actually returned for Marazion in the year 1658. It does not, however, appear that they ever took their seats. It would seem, moreover, from some original letters which passed between the Sheriff of Cornwall and the mayor of this borough, during the protectorate of Cromwell, that the inhabitants were solicitous to recover their long neglected rights; but this effort proved ineffectual. In going from Marazion to the Mount, we pass a large insulated rock, known by the name of the "_Chapel Rock_," whereon the Pilgrims, who came to visit the Priory of Saint Michael, are said to have performed certain devotionary and superstitious ceremonies, in a kind of initiatory chapel, previous to their admission to the more sacred Mount; there is not, however, the slightest vestige of any masonry to be discovered, and it would therefore seem more probable that it merely derived its name from its vicinity to the shrine of Saint Michael. The rock is composed of well marked _Greenstone_, resting on a bed of _clay-slate_, and which, in its direction and dip, will be found to correspond with the slaty rock on the western base of the Mount.