Launched in March 1783, she saw service in the Leeward Islands and Nova Scotia before being paid off in 1792 and sold to whaling company Samuel Enderby & Sons.

She made two voyages as a whaler and two as a slave ship transporting enslaved people, before she was condemned in 1802 in the Americas as unseaworthy.

[1][a] Rattler was built to the same technical drawings as the five other Echo-class ships, namely Brisk (1784), Calypso (1783), Echo (1782), Nautilus (1784), and Scorpion (1785).

[6] All the Echo class used the same plans for frame,[7] inboard profile,[8] lines,[9] stern,[10] and upper and lower decks Rattler was commissioned in April 1783 for service in the British Leeward Islands under Commander Wilfred Collingwood, assisting in enforcement of Great Britain's Navigation Acts against American trading vessels.

[11] In 1787 she was laid up to remove her copper bottom and replace it with wooden sheathing, despite the weaker protection this offered against infestation by shipworm.

[1] While the ship was being refitted Commander Collingwood was taken ill and died on 21 April 1787 en route to a hospital at Grenada.

The big discovery was the Galapagos Islands, which offered safe anchorages, and tortoises that represented fresh meat, and plentiful sperm whales.

Rattler returned with a poor cargo of only 48 tuns of sperm oil but with a detailed chart of the western side of South America and the Galapagos.

[13] 2nd voyage transporting enslaved people (1800–1801): Captain Thomas Wilson acquired a letter of marque on 17 November 1800.

[16] Rattler returned to Falmouth after having been chased on 1 February 1801, off Finisterre and having been forced to separate from her convoy and escort, HMS Fly.

[16] Rattler, late Wilson master, sailed from Demerara for London but around the end of January 1802, had to put into Grenada leaky.

On 25 July 1804, Rattler, Wright, master, returned to Leith with a full ship, having taken 10 "fish" (whales) in the Davis Strait.