Rover was owned by a group of merchants from Liverpool, Nova Scotia, led by Simeon Perkins and Snow Parker.

On 10 September 1800 on the coast of Venezuela, Rover captured Santa Rita, a schooner fitted out in Puerto Cabello, which had ten 6-pounder guns and two 12-pounder carronades, and having 125 men.

A subsequent captain, Benjamin Collins, lost his letter of marque and created trouble for Rover's owners with the illegal capture of several merchant vessels.

Nova Scotian writer Thomas H. Raddall wrote a history of Rover and based his 1948 novel Pride's Fancy on the brig.

The privateer also inspired the "Ballad of the Rover", a song written in the 1920s by Nova Scotian writer Archibald MacMechan.