HMS Viper was launched at Cowes in 1805 as the mercantile schooner Princess Charlotte.

Lieutenant William Towning commissioned her.

On 9 (or 18) February 1809 she sailed from Cadiz for Gibraltar.

She never arrived and was presumed to have foundered with all hands.

[1] [2] She was carrying as a passenger Robert Arbuthnot, the former Chief Secretary in Ceylon.