HMS Viper was a 6-gun galley, the former South Carolina Navy's Rutledge, which the British captured on 4 November 1779 at Tybee.

[2] Curiously, a number of sources list the galley Viper among the vessels under the command of Captain John Henry when the French fleet under the Comte d'Estaing besieged Savannah in September–October 1779.

[3] The Royal Navy commissioned Viper on 18 November 1779 under the command of Lieutenant Charles Wroughton.

[4] "HM Armed Galley Viper", Acting Lieutenant Thomas Chambers, was among the vessels at the Siege of Charleston, 28 March to 12 May 1780.

[5] For the next two years she is listed as being under the command of W.R. Dunlop and part of the North America squadron under Rear-Admiral of the Red Robert Rigby.