HMS Hermes was a Hermes-class wooden paddle sloop of the Royal Navy.

Hermes was the sixth named vessel since it was used for a 12-gun brig sloop, captured from the Dutch (Mercurius) by Sylph at Texel on 12 May 1596 and foundered in January 1797.

[4][Note 1] She was commissioned in November 1835 under the command of Lieutenant William Simpson Blount, RN for the Mediterranean packet service.

Starting in December she has a 220 nominal horsepower Maudslay 4-cylinder 'Siamese' engine and new boilers installed at a cost of £11,225.

[7] She commissioned on 30 May 1843 under the command of Lieutenant Washington Carr, RN for service on the North America and West Indies Station.

She returned to Home Waters paying off into the Steam Reserve at Woolwich on 10 June 1854.

They first visited Sydney and Halifax in Nova Scotia before making their way down to Bermuda, and then on to the Caribbean and the West Indies.

In August 1856 while in Jamaica, the muster rolls for Hermes show several of her crew as being discharged dead, which included the Ship Surgeon, John Ward,[17] Assistant Surgeon Henry Cox as well as the Paymaster and Assistant Engineer, amongst others.

This rather suggests it was something like an outbreak of cholera, smallpox or a tropical disease which had taken hold on board, as several of the crew died within a few weeks of each other and it also left Hermes with no medical officer.