In 1679, during the Westland Rising, William served as a courier for the Whigs who were attempting to negotiate with the leader of the Royal army.
In November, a smaller group of fifty-one sailed south to Port Royal and chose a site for Stuart Town.
Dunlop advocated using the labour of enslaved African people from Barbados and he sold eleven runaway slaves to the Spanish for sixteen hundred pieces of eight.
Cardross was too ill to travel, so Dunlop wrote Quary and apologized for their actions and said they would submit to magistrates appointed by the governor.
The Spaniards began to move towards Charles Town, burning English homes and plantations along the way when a hurricane hit.
However, it is recorded that in April 1687, William Dunlop was in the St. Helena Sound area, presumably to make another attempt to set up trade with the Native Americans.
[11] In 1690, an admirer, John Stewart, wrote from Carolina to Dunlop in Edinburgh, congratulating him for his work in establishing cotton plantations.
He committed the university to contribute to the heavy cost of rebuilding the Blackfriars Kirk, which had been destroyed by a lightning strike in 1670.
In the autumn of 1697 the directors of the company asked him to travel to Edinburgh to provide expert advice on the establishment of an overseas trading colony.
Along with Robert Blackwell, he was asked to investigate whether the banker William Paterson had had any involvement in the misappropriation of company funds by his business associate James Smyth.
The couple lived in Glasgow before Dunlop's departure for Carolina in 1684, by which time they had three sons ('Jocke', 'Sandie' (Alexander), and William) and a reputation as devout Presbyterians.
[19] During this time, she looked after the three children and managed Dunlop's affairs, writing a series of detailed letters to her husband (who she often called her ‘dear[e]st Heart’).