After twenty years of service, including involvement in the West Indies campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars, she was converted into a bomb vessel in 1798.

Zebra was built to a design by Edward Hunt, and launched and commissioned in August 1780 under Commander John Bourchier.

[8] On 14 April 1782 Zebra was with Admiral Sir George Brydges Rodney, the commander-in chief of the Leeward Islands station, at the Battle of the Saintes.

Smaller vessels like Zebra would be used to relay messages, tow damaged ships out of the line or rescue seaman.

[10] Late in 1782 Zebra and Nonsuch escorted a fleet from Georgia "with the principal inhabitants, their Negroes, and their Effects" to Jamaica.

Jervis ordered the third rate ship of the line HMS Asia (64 guns), and the Zebra to take Fort Saint Louis.

Boat Service 1794" for the capture of the French frigate Bienvenue and other vessels in Fort Royal Bay.

[15] Zebra returned to Fort Royal on 4 December with the French schooner Carmagnols, which she had taken on 30 November off Saint Lucia.

[17] The captures of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint Lucia yielded prize money for the captains and crews of the vessels involved, and for the army units.

[a] Early in 1795, Zebra, under Captain Skinner, supported the British Army in suppressing an insurrection by the indigenous Caribs on St Vincent.

[25] At Port of Spain they found a Spanish squadron consisting of four ships of the line and a frigate, all under the command of Rear-Admiral Don Sebastian Ruiz de Apodaca.

At 2am on 17 February the British discovered that four of the five Spanish vessels were on fire; they were able to capture the 74-gun San Domaso but the others were destroyed.

[25] Zebra shared with the rest of the flotilla in the allocation of £40,000 for the proceeds of the ships taken at Trinidad and of the property found on the island.

[4] On 28 August 1799 Zebra was with the British fleet that captured the Dutch hulks Drotchterland and Brooderschap, and the ships Helder, Venus, Minerva, and Hector, in the Nieuwe Diep, in Holland.

[c] The capture of these vessels was part of the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland and preceded by two days the Vlieter Incident in which a large part of the navy of the Batavian Republic, commanded by Rear-Admiral Samuel Story, surrendered to the British navy on a sandbank near the Channel known as De Vlieter, near Wieringen.

[29] In 1847, Zebra's surviving crew qualified to receive the Naval General Service Medal with the clasp "Copenhagen 1801".

[32] In July and August 1804 Zebra participated in the squadron under Captain Robert Dudley Oliver in HMS Melpomene at the bombardment of French vessels at Le Havre.

Zebra joined the "Advanced Squadron", which was protecting the batteries the British were building to support their attack on the city.

[37] Zebra was one of six British warships that shared in the capture on 23 August of the Danish vessel Speculation.

[38] On 2 September, the bomb vessels joined the land-based mortar batteries in bombarding Copenhagen.

[39] On 20 June 1808, Zebra was in the Baltic, under the command of Thomas R. Toker, when she captured the Danish sloop Emenzius.