Her Majesty might also, by Order in Council, declare that goods of any sort, or the produce of any place, not otherwise prohibited by the Law of Navigation, might be imported into any port or ports of the British possessions abroad, to be named in such Order, from any place, _in a British ship_, and from any place not being a part of the British dominions, in a foreign ship of any country, and however navigated, to be warehoused for _exportation_ only (8 & 9 Vict., cap. 88, sect. 23). [Sidenote: Their rigorous character.] _Rule 4._ The privileges of trading allowed to foreign ships under _Rule 3_ were limited to the ships of those countries which, _having colonial possessions_, should grant the like privileges of trading with those possessions to British ships, or which, not having colonial possessions, “shall place the commerce and navigation of this country, and of its possessions abroad, on the footing of the ‘most favoured nation’: unless her Majesty, by Order in Council, shall in any case deem it expedient to grant the whole, or any of such privileges, to the ships of any foreign country, although the conditions aforesaid shall not in all respects be fulfilled by such foreign country” (8 & 9 Vict., cap. 93, sect. 4). _Rule 5._ “No goods shall be _imported_ into, nor shall any goods (except the produce of the fisheries, in British ships) be _exported_, from any of the British possessions in America by sea, from or to any place other than the United Kingdom, or some other of such possessions, except into or from the several ports in such possessions called ‘Free Ports.’” (See 8 & 9 Vict., cap. 93, sect. 2.) The 62nd section of the Act applied this principle to the Mauritius, as well as to the American possessions; while, under the 90th section, the trade of other colonies was regulated by the Queen. Goods could be imported by inland navigation into any place where there was a custom-house. The rule was not to extend “to prohibit the importation or exportation of goods into or from any ports or places in Newfoundland, or Labrador, in British ships;” and by the 2nd section, certain articles might be imported from Guernsey and Jersey into places where the fishery was carried on, though the same were not free ports. These five rules comprise the Law as it stood in 1847. But it is also as well to give some account of its previous history and its various modifications. [Sidenote: Their history from 1660 to 1847.]