If the early U.S. Navy built first-rates instead of frigates

How would naval history change if the United States began with six first-rates instead of six heavy frigates?

Britain would answer with a battle squadron and enough ships of the line to outnumber the American first-rates, changing the scale of early operations.

The original American heavy frigates invited the Royal Navy to deploy frigates on the North America and West Indies Station. Six first-rates would signal a battle-squadron threat, prompting Britain to send second- and third-rate ships of the line in sufficient numbers to concentrate against them. American hulls could be well built and well handled, but first-rates demanded experience very different from merchant ships or frigates. The strategic effect therefore comes less from a one-for-one design comparison than from the much larger British response their construction would trigger.