ABSTRACT
PORT PHILLIP, as Victoria was called, was the best example of what the Colonial Office termed 'the triumph of popular feeling over positive law', for there squatters forced the Government to declare a colony, in direct defiance of their policy. Though there had been small settlements on the coast in 1803 and 1826,1 the Government refused to allow permanent occupation south of the Nineteen Counties. But the shortage of pasture land in Van Diemen's Land and a new Impounding Act2 led to an unauthorized occupation of the mainland at three points - by the Hentys at Portland (1834), by Batman at Port Phillip (1835) and Mackilop in Gippsland.
