On March 25, 1777, the Marine Committee laid before Congress the complaints and charges against Commodore Hopkins, and on the next day Congress took them into consideration; whereupon it resolved that “Esek Hopkins be immediately, and he is hereby, suspended from his command in the American navy.”[179] Hopkins remained suspended until January 2, 1778. The Journals of Congress for this date contain the following entry: “Congress having no farther occasion for the service of Esek Hopkins, esq. who, on the 22nd of December, 1775, was appointed commander in chief of the fleet fitted out by the naval committee, Resolved, That the said Esek Hopkins, esq. be dismissed from the service of the United States.”[180] Hopkins’s suspension and removal did not in any way improve the navy. Indeed, it was far less fortunate in 1777, than it had been in 1776. That its chief officer should have been suspended without a hearing, on flimsy charges, offered by a small number of inferior officers whose leader was guilty of insubordination, convicts Congress of acting with undue haste and of doing a possible injustice, and arouses the suspicion that it was not actuated wholly by a calm and unbiased judgment. The wording of Hopkins’s dismissal seems needlessly curt, and harsh. Since Hopkins had lost the confidence of Congress, the Marine Committee, and many of his countrymen, his removal from the office of commander-in-chief to that of a captain might have been justified. On January 13, 1778, Hopkins brought a suit for libel against the ten officers concerned in the “conspiracy,” fixing his damages at £10,000. On July 30 Congress passed a resolution for defraying the reasonable expenses of the ten officers in defending their suit.[181] The case was tried before a jury in the Inferior Court of Common Pleas of Rhode Island. The decision was unfavorable to Hopkins, as the jury brought in a verdict for “the defendants and their costs.” The victory of the opposition to the Commodore was complete. He had not, however, lost the confidence of his fellow townsmen. He served in the General Assembly of his state, representing North Providence from 1777 until 1786, and he was from 1777 until the end of the Revolution a member of the Rhode Island Council of War.[182] No one who knew Hopkins intimately ever doubted his courage, his patriotism, or his honesty of purpose.