HMS Pylades was an 18-gun Dutch-built brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was originally built as the privateer Hercules, and was captured by the British in 1781. She went on to serve during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and the subsequent years of peace. The privateer was one of two captured in the North Sea in November 1781, both of which were taken into the Navy. Pylades went on to serve under several commanders, spending most of her career sailing in the English Channel. She did not survive to see service in the French Revolutionary Wars, having been sold for breaking up in March 1790.