Later, when working for the Hudson's Bay Company, he faced criminal charges for having seized the fort of the Nor'Westers in the Red River colony, but was acquitted by a court in Lower Canada.

On a later expedition, he was twice captured by Samuel Black of the North West Company, who planned to charge him with attempted murder.

After the death of his financial patron, Lord Selkirk, Robertson had to flee to France to avoid imprisonment for debt; he eventually worked out a bankruptcy agreement where he paid his creditors two shillings on the pound, before returning to the fur trade.

Contrary to the contemporary attitudes to such marriages, he treated his wife with respect and tried to integrate her into the fur-trading social life.

Robertson was originally apprenticed in Scotland as a hand-weaver, but abandoned his apprenticeship when the trade collapsed from competition by the weaving mills.

He gained considerable experience about the fur trade, travelling and working in Rupert's Land and the north-western territory.

During his time with the North West Company, he fought a duel with a fellow Nor'Wester, John MacDonald of Garth.

He organised the first overland HBC expedition from Montreal to the north-west, leading a large collection of experienced French-Canadian fur-trading voyageurs.

Robertson was charismatic, over six feet tall, red-haired, fond of quoting Shakespeare, and with considerable self-confidence and generosity, necessary to lead groups of men in the wilderness of the fur trade.

While waiting for a ship to England, he heard that Semple and twenty of his men had been killed in an affray with the Nor'Westers at the Battle of Seven Oaks, part of the Pemmican War.

He was taken prisoner twice by Samuel Black of the North West Company, who planned to charge him with attempted murder, but he escaped both times, fled to the United States, and returned to England.

He treated her with respect but the HBC governor, George Simpson, was disdainful of the relationship, based on his racial views.

One of the leaders of the French-Canadian Group, John Neilson, brought a motion which condemned the way the union had been imposed on Lower Canada.

He did not leave a large estate, having used his pay-out from the Hudson's Bay Company to pay off the mortgage on his house in Montreal, and having spent considerable sums on the election campaign the previous year.