This action seems more severe than the facts justify. John Adams, who defended Hopkins, had with difficulty prevented Congress from cashiering the Commodore. According to Adams’s view, Hopkins was “pursued and persecuted by that anti-New-England spirit which haunted Congress in many other of their proceedings, as well as in this case.”[177] The action of Congress may be interpreted differently. Hopkins had not met the expectations of Congress or the Marine Committee. As the head of the fleet, blame naturally fell upon him, whether he deserved it or not. He had his shortcomings as a naval officer, and failure magnified them. By placing the blame upon him, the skirts of Congress, of the Marine Committee, and of the other naval officers were cleared, and the hopes of a few self-interested men were brightened. Commodore Hopkins’s failure to carry out the plans of the Marine Committee during the fall of 1776, together with the partial inaction of the fleet under his command, increased his disfavor with Congress and the Marine Committee. His praiseworthy endeavors to man and prepare his fleet for sea won for him the enmity of the owners of privateers at Providence, for his success would mean the taking of men and materials sorely needed by the privateersmen. Hopkins’s intemperate language, lack of tact, and naval misfortunes bred a spirit of discontent, and gave an excuse for insubordination among his inferior officers. Encouraged by the discontented privateersmen of Providence, ten of the inferior officers of the “Warren,” the Commodore’s flagship, signed a petition and certain letters containing complaints and charges against Hopkins, and sent their documents to the Marine Committee. They were taken to Philadelphia by the chief “conspirator,” Captain John Grannis of the marines. These documents asserted that Hopkins had called the members of the Marine Committee and of Congress “ignorant fellows-lawyers, clerks-persons who don’t know how to govern men;” that he was “remarkably addicted to profane swearing;” that he had “treated prisoners in a most inhuman and barbarous manner;” that he was a “hindrance to the proper manning of the fleet;” and that “his conversation is at times so wild and orders so unsteady that I have sometimes thought he was not in his right mind.” Besides these accusations, there were a few others of even less substantial character.[178]