I'm sure the "frigate" Surprise could have blown the Constitution out of the water if Capt. Aubrey had ever secured the esteemed weather gage.

It's true that the Levant was recaptured after a British squadron of two 50-gun ships and a 40-gun ship cornered her in the Portugal port of Porto Praya in the Cape Verde Islands. In the process the British managed to level a good part of the town with their cannon fire, which the Portugese considered a violation of port neutrality. The British squadron commander, Sir George Collier, apparently never lived down the fact that the Constitution escaped with the Cyane; he committed suicide some ten years later.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble