Robertson retired into a world where the American Revolution had awakened public opinion, creating partisan divisions at all levels. Thomas Somerville observed that the failure of the war in America produced a “great change” in British society: “the discussion of this subject not only engaged the attention of the public bodies of men, but became a principal subject of conversation in every company, and often excited angry debates, which impaired the pleasures of social life, and weakened the confidence of friendship.” During the early 1780s, political instability added to the tension. The fall of Lord North's administration in March 1782 brought eighteenth months of confusion as the government staggered through three administrations, which Boswell picturesquely described as “that extraordinary fluctuation of Ministers whom we have … seen, like the visions of Macbeth: ‘Come like shadows, so depart.’ “ The fluctuation concluded in December 1783 with the king's dismissal of the coalition of Charles James Fox and Lord North and the rejection of Fox's India Bill. One temporary casualty in this confusion that affected Robertson was Henry Dundas, who, between August and December 1783, was replaced as Lord Advocate by the liberal Henry Erskine taking the post. Although no serious damage to Dundas's interests resulted from this four-month hiatus, it encouraged those like the Earl of Buchan (Henry Erskine's brother) and his protégé Gilbert Stuart who saw Robertson as the vulnerable representative of an entrenched establishment. Robertson shared the deep national concern in the midst of uncertainty, Boswell terming it “the most interesting period since the Restoration.” In March 1784, on the eve of Pitt's sweeping victory, Robertson wrote to Robert Murray Keith that “The wretched state of our publick affairs for four months past, which must render us the scorn of all Europe, has afflicted me so much, that I hardly possess myself sufficiently to apply myself to study as usual.” But a conservative, more united, government emerged when William Pitt the Younger, who had become Prime Minister upon the fall of the Fox–North Coalition, gained a stunning victory in the general elections of March 1784, supported nationally by a wave of relief at ending several years of instability.