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 demy, working under Sir Joshua Reynolds and Benjamin West. His miniature portraits soon attracted attention. Hearing through some Scottish friends that there was an opening for his art in the new world, Robertson removed to America. The Earl of Buchan, who was interested in his progress, gave him a letter of recommendation to Washington, and entrusted to him a gift known as the ‘Wallace Box,’ requesting at the same time a portrait of Washington from the pencil of Robertson. This introduction gained for Robertson admission into the family circle of Washington. He painted a portrait of Washington in oils for Buchan, and miniatures of Washington and his wife in watercolours on ivory, which are in the possession of two of Robertson's grand-daughters. Robertson met with so much success that he settled in New York, and was joined by his brother Alexander in 1792. They set up a drawing school at 79 Liberty Street, New York, known as the Columbian Academy. Both brothers became prominent citizens in New York. Archibald died there in 1835. An engraved portrait of him was published in 1805.

Archibald married, in 1793, Eliza, daughter of Andrew Abramse and Magdalen Lispenard of New York, and had a numerous family, of whom the fourth son, Anthony Lispenard Robertson, became chief justice of New York.

[Letters and Papers of Andrew Robertson, edited by Emily Robertson; Unpublished Washington Portraits (Magazine of American History, April 1888); Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography.] 

ROBERTSON, ARCHIBALD (d. 1847), major-general and director of the East India Company, was nominated a cadet in 1800, and was made ensign in the 6th native infantry (Bombay establishment) on 22 May 1801. On 17 Oct. he became lieutenant. Shortly before this the gaekwar of Gujarat had called in the help of the government of Bombay, and a British resident (Major Walker) had been appointed. The Arab troops, which formed the garrison of Baroda, mutinied and seized the gaekwar. Robertson took part in the siege by which Baroda was recovered. In 1803 he was given the command of a local corps in Gujarat, and in the following year he was also employed as a revenue officer.

In 1805, when arrangements were made for the administration of Gujarat, he was appointed first assistant of the collectorship of Kaira, and remained twelve years in this position. He assisted Colonel Walker in the operations undertaken in 1807–8 to compel the rajputs of Kattiawar to pay their tribute to the gaekwar, including the siege of the fort of Kandorna; and he was also present at the siege of Malia in 1809. He became captain in the army on 4 July 1811, and in the 6th native infantry on 1 Oct. 1812.

In 1817 he was made collector of the eastern zilla, north of the Mahi; and in 1823 he was given charge of the province of Khandeish as collector and magistrate. He found this important district in a very disturbed state, but he organised police, put down robbery and murder, corrected abuses, and at the end of three years left it in good order. In 1827 he was appointed resident at Satara (a post afterwards occupied by Outram and Bartle Frere). There he worked smoothly with the rajah while satisfying his own government. He became major on 9 Jan. 1822, lieutenant-colonel on 1 May 1824, colonel on 1 Dec. 1829, and major-general (local rank) on 28 June 1837.

He returned to England in 1831, and was elected a director of the East India Company in 1840. He died in London on 9 June 1847.

[Gent. Mag. 1847, ii. 640; Dodwell and Miles's List of Officers of the Indian Army; East India Company's Register; Wilson's continuation of Mill's History of British India.] 

ROBERTSON, ARCHIBALD (1789–1864), medical writer, was born at Cockburnspath, near Dunbar, on 3 Dec. 1789, and educated at Dunse school, and afterwards by Mr. Strachan in Berwickshire. After prosecuting his medical studies in Edinburgh, he passed as assistant surgeon in 1808, and was appointed to Mill prison hospital for French prisoners at Plymouth. In 1809 he was in Lord Gambier's flagship the Caledonia in Basque roads, when Lord Dundonald tried to burn the French fleet. He then served in the Baltic, and afterwards in the West Indies, in the Persian and the Cydnus, besides boat service in the attempt on New Orleans. At the peace of 1813 with America he went on half-pay, having received a medal with two clasps. He graduated M.D. at Edinburgh in 1817, his thesis being on the dysentery of hot climates. He settled in 1818 at Northampton, where he obtained a lucrative practice. In 1820 he was elected physician to the Northampton infirmary. In 1853 he retired to Clifton. On 11 Feb. 1836 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in the same year became a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He died at 11 West Mall, Clifton, on 19 Oct. 1864, leaving one son, the Rev. George Samuel Robertson (1825–1874), M.A. of Exeter College, Oxford. 