USS Congress (1799)-- Part 1: Built at Badger's Island, Portsmouth, N.H.

From Wikipedia.

The USS Congress was a nominally rated 38-gun wooden hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the U.S. Navy.  Built by James Hackett in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Badger's Island.  She was launched 15 August 1799 and was one of the original six  frigates in the U.S. Navy authorized by the Naval Act of 1794.

The name Congress  was one of the ten names submitted to President George Washington by Secretary of War Timothy Pickering  in March 1795 for the six frigates to be constructed.

Joshua Humphreys, famed ship builder and naval contractor, designed these ships to be the young Navy's capital ships., so the Congress and her sister ships were designed  to be larger and more heavily armed than most frigates at the time (especially in the British fleet).  Essentially, they were Super-Frigates or, in the 20th century, heavy cruisers.

The USS Constitution was one of these six frigates.

A battle between them and a standard frigate would probably not go well for the regular frigate.

--Brock-Perry