Prince Rupert had a sufficiently hard task when he tried to win the place back. That dashing leader made light of the defences that had been thrown up; but the citizens kept him outside, for all that, for full three weeks, beating back his troops at every successive assault, and only surrendering after a combined attack by night. The fiery Prince did not appreciate the bravery of the men of Liverpool, but smote them without mercy when the chance came, and did much damage to their property besides. His triumph, however, was of the briefest. The battle of Marston Moor, with its crowning victory for the Commonwealth, was fought six days afterwards, and all that Prince Rupert had gained gradually passed into the hands of the Parliament, Liverpool included, though not without another siege. The attitude of the citizens favoured them with the Protector. As compensation for the loss they had sustained, the Corporation secured rights of ferryage over the Mersey, they were allowed £500 worth of timber from the estates of the Royalists in the neighbourhood, and they got a money allowance in addition of £10,000. Camden in the reign of Elizabeth found Liverpool "not so eminent for being ancient as for being neat and populous"; and the historian who speaks of it in the closing years of the nineteenth century may fittingly describe the city in the same terms. But there is this difference between the two epochs--that while the inhabitants in Camden's time were housed in seven streets, they are now spread over a great area north and south, and away to the east, in streets almost too numerous to count. In 1565 a census that was taken gave the population of Liverpool at 820. In 1700 the number had risen to 5,700. Fifty years later it was about 25,000. At the beginning of the present century it was 85,000. At the present time, including Birkenhead and the suburbs, it probably exceeds 900,000. Its position as a port, as has been shown, was insignificant in the ship-money days; it now handles about one-fifth of the tonnage of Great Britain. In 1801 vessels trading to and from Liverpool numbered 5,000, with an aggregate tonnage of 459,710, providing dues to the extent of about £28,000. For the year ending June 30th, 1896, 23,659 vessels entered the port, representing a tonnage of 11,946,459. For the same period, the total revenue of the dock estate from all sources amounted to £4,014,000. The number of sailing vessels finding their way to the Mersey as compared with the Thames is as three to one, and to the Clyde as two to one. One-third more steamers enter the Thames, but the greater number of large liners that come to Liverpool almost equalises the steam tonnage.