Sixteen ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Viper, or HMS Vipere, after the members of the Viperidae family:
Barrington Dacres was an officer of the Royal Navy, who saw service during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He eventually rose to the rank of Post-Captain. He did not see action in many significant engagements, and is chiefly remembered for the accidental loss of his ship to the French, and for the unsuccessful chase of two French ships in the English Channel. He did command a number of ships of the line under several of the leading naval commanders of his time. His early death, however, prevented him from achieving the same seniority and degree of fame as his relatives did.
HMS Juno was a Royal Navy 32-gun Amazon-class fifth rate. This frigate served during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
HMS Carysfort was a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She served during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars in a career that spanned over forty years.
HMS Drake was a 14-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was bought from a commercial builder during the early years of the American War of Independence, and went on to support operations in the English Channel and the Caribbean. At one stage she assisted an attack on a French-held island, an expedition commanded by a young Horatio Nelson. Laid up for a time after the end of the American War of Independence, she returned to service shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars. Drake spent most of her time in Caribbean waters, until being declared unfit for service in 1800 and deleted from the navy lists.
HMS Montreal was a 32-gun Niger-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1761 and served in the Seven Years' War and the American War of Independence. The French captured her in 1779 and she then served with them under the name Montréal. An Anglo-Spanish force destroyed her during the occupation of Toulon early in the French Revolutionary Wars.
Charles Inglis was an officer of the Royal Navy who saw service during the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the American War of Independence, rising to the rank of rear-admiral.
HMS Prince William was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She had previously been Guipuzcoano, an armed 64-gun ship of the Spanish (Basque) mercantile Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas. She was also known by the religious name of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción.
Jean Bart was a merchant vessel built at Bayonne in 1786. Her owners commissioned her at Nantes in 1793 as a privateer. The French Navy requisitioned her in January 1794 and classed her as a corvette and listed her as Jean Bart No. 2 to distinguish her from the French corvette Jean Bart (1793). The Navy intended to rename her Imposant in May 1795, but the Royal Navy captured her first.
HMS Greyhound was a cutter that the British Admiralty purchased in 1780 and renamed Viper in 1781. Viper captured several French privateers in the waters around Great Britain, and took part in a notable engagement. She was sold in October 1809.
HMS Tapageur was the French privateer cutter Tapageur, launched in 1778 or 1779, possibly at Dunkirk. The British captured her in 1779, while she was operating out of Saint Malo. She wrecked a year later in the West Indies.
Mutin was a 14-gun cutter of the French Navy, the lead ship of the Mutin class of five naval cutters. She was launched in 1778 and the Royal Navy captured her the next year, taking her into service as HMS Mutine. The Royal Navy renamed her HMS Pigmy in 1798. She was lost in 1805.
HMS Barbuda was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1780 after having briefly served as an American privateer. Barbuda was one of the two sloops that captured Demerara and Essequibo in 1781, but the French Navy captured her there in 1782 and took her into service as Barboude. The French Navy sold her to private owners in 1786, and she served briefly as a privateer in early 1793 before the French Navy purchased her again and named her Légère. She served them until mid-1796 when the Royal Navy captured her and took her into service as HMS Legere. She was wrecked off the coast of Colombia, without loss of life, in February 1801.
HMS Diligent was a brig the Royal Navy purchased in 1777. The Continental Navy captured her in May 1779 and took her into service as the USS Diligent. She then participated in the disastrous Penobscot Expedition where her crew had to scuttle her in August to prevent her capture.
HMS Ceres was an 18-gun sloop launched in 1777 for the British Royal Navy that the French captured in December 1778 off Saint Lucia. The French Navy took her into service as Cérès. The British recaptured her in 1782 and renamed her HMS Raven, only to have the French recapture her again early in 1783. The French returned her name to Cérès, and she then served in the French Navy until sold at Brest in 1791.
HMS Pearl was a fifth-rate, 32-gun British Royal Navy frigate of the Niger-class. Launched at Chatham Dockyard in 1762, she served in British North America until January 1773, when she sailed to England for repairs. Returning to North America in March 1776, to fight in the American Revolutionary War, Pearl escorted the transports which landed troops in Kip's Bay that September. Much of the following year was spent on the Delaware River where she took part in the Battle of Red Bank in October. Towards the end of 1777, Pearl joined Vice-Admiral Richard Howe's fleet in Narragansett Bay and was still there when the French fleet arrived and began an attack on British positions. Both fleets were forced to retire due to bad weather and the action was inconclusive. Pearl was then despatched to keep an eye on the French fleet, which had been driven into Boston.
The Leeward Islands Station originally known as the Commander-in-Chief at Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands was a formation or command of the Kingdom of Great Britain and then the United Kingdom's Royal Navy stationed at English Harbour, Antigua, Leeward Islands. It existed from 1743 to 1821.
HMS Roebuck was a fifth-rate ship of the Royal Navy which served in the American and French Revolutionary Wars. Designed in 1769 by Sir Thomas Slade to operate in the shallower waters of North America, she joined Lord Howe's squadron towards the end of 1775 and took part in operations against New York the following year. She engaged the American gun batteries at Red Hook during the Battle of Long Island in August 1776, and forced a passage up the Hudson River in October. On 25 August 1777, Roebuck escorted troopships to Turkey Point, Maryland, where an army was landed for an assault on Philadelphia. She was again called upon to accompany troopships in December 1779, this time for an attack on Charleston. When the ships-of-the-line, which were too large to enter the harbour, were sent back to New York, Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot made Roebuck his flagship. She was, therefore, at the front of the attack, leading the British squadron across the shoal to engage Fort Moultrie and the American ships beyond.
HM galley Comet was the South Carolina Navy's brigantine Comet, which the government of South Carolina purchased in 1775. The British Royal Navy captured her in 1777. She grounded and was destroyed in 1780.
HMS True Briton was a cutter the Royal Navy purchased in 1778. In 1779 she participated in a successful operation that resulted in the capture of a French frigate and several other naval vessels. The French Navy captured True Briton in 1780. She became the mercantile Tartare. The Royal Navy recaptured her and recommissioned her as HMS True Briton. The Navy laid her up in 1783 and sold her in 1785.
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