HMS Merlin was one of the two original Merlin-class sloops that served the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary Wars.

She later captured a number of small merchant vessels in the West Indies before returning to Britain, where she was broken up.

[a] Dundas then sailed Merlin for Jamaica in August, and on to Honduras in December, where he delivered arms to prepare the colony for an attack by the Spanish coming down from Yucatan.

Dundas received promotion to post-captain on 9 July 1798, and Commander John Ralph Moss replaced him on Merlin in August 1798.

In September 1801 she captured a Spanish privateer on the north side of Jamaica, that had one gun on a circular sweep.