Dispatch boats were small boats, and sometimes large ships, tasked to carry military dispatches from ship to ship or from ship to shore or, in some cases from shore to shore. Dispatch boats were employed when other means of transmitting a message was not possible or safe or as quick.

Dispatch boats, which performed their dispatch-carrying duties only on a temporary basis, should not be confused with Packet ships -- sometimes called packetboats or paquetbots-- which were cargo ships which also routinely carried the mail from port to port.

Generally, dispatch boats served the military, and paquetbots served commerce.

Dispatch boat was a term used by the United States Navy in its journal accounts to describe boats which carried messages, or mail—otherwise termed dispatches—between high ranking military officials aboard other ships or to land-based destinations.

In 1776 the Continental Navy ship Lynch was assigned dispatch boat duty and, after delivering her secret dispatches in France, set sail for the United States with French secret dispatches, only to be captured by the British, but not before destroying the French dispatches.