HMS Snake was a British Royal Navy ship launched in 1797 as the only member of her class of brig-sloops.

She also captured numerous small merchantmen, but spent time escorting convoys to and from the West Indies.

He produced two designs, one for a ship-sloop (Snake), and one for a brig-sloop (Cruizer) that differed only in their rigging.

His designs were in competition with those of John Henslow, who produced the ship-sloop Echo and the brig-sloop Busy.

[citation needed] Snake was commissioned in February 1798 under Commander John Mason Lewis for cruising and convoy duty.

[2] On the morning of 10 November 1799 Eurydice was some three leagues (14 km) south-east of Beachy Head, when she sighted a schooner and a brig.

Eurydice sent over a boat and her surgeon, Mr. Pardie, had to amputate the arm of the wounded man on Diana.

Halfway through the afternoon Eurydice came nearly within gunshot of the privateer which bore up and tried to cross Snake.

The schooner was Hirondelle, of fourteen 3 and 4-pounder guns, with a crew of 50 men under the command of Pierre Merie Dugerdin.

In trying to evade him after dark the privateer grounded on Rocky Point near the east end of Jamaica.

[15][a] The London Morning Post reported on 12 November 1803 that Snake had detained 12 vessels, most of which were American.

[20] On 15 October Snake was in company with Piercer and Leyden at the capture of the Danish brig Narhvalen and so later shared in the proceeds.

[1] On 24 June 1809 Snake and Fancy were in company and so later shared in the proceeds from the capture of the Danish galliot Catherina.

[25] The following battle between Hammerfest's two two-cannon batteries and the Royal Navy warships with a combined number of thirty-two cannon between them was unusually intense and did not end until the Norwegian cannons had run out of gunpowder after about 90 minutes of combat.

Both warships had suffered a number of cannonball hits and had at least one fatal casualty; a sailor who was buried at the local cemetery.

[citation needed] Lloyd's List reported on 1 August that Fortuna had arrived at Aberdeen.

[31] A later prize money announcement makes clearer that Snake had recaptured the galliot Oldenburg, Carl Frederick Janvaril-Veer, master.

[32] Lloyd's List reported on 15 September that Snake had captured a Danish privateer of 12 guns and 78 men and brought her into Leith.

On the Sunday prior to 6 November, a Russian galiot that Tartar had captured was laying stranded at Montrose.

[b] The "Principal Officers and Commissioners of His Majesty's Navy" offered for sale on 18 April 1816, lying at Sheerness, the "Snake brig, of 386 tons".