Then followed a melodramatic change. May 11, as the prime minister entered the House to attend the investigation, persons about the door heard the report of a pistol, and saw Spencer Perceval fall forward shot through the heart. By the hand of a lunatic moved only by imaginary personal motives, this minister, who seemed in no way a tragical figure, became the victim of a tragedy without example in modern English history; but although England had never been in a situation more desperate, the true importance of Spencer Perceval was far from great, and when he vanished in the flash of a pistol from the stage where he seemed to fill the most considerable part, he stood already on the verge of overthrow. His death relieved England of a burden. Brougham would not allow his inquiry to be suspended, and the premier’s assassination rather concealed than revealed the defeat his system must have suffered. During the negotiations which followed, in the midst of difficulties in forming a new Ministry, Castlereagh received from Jonathan Russell Napoleon’s clandestine Decree of Repeal. Brougham asked, May 22, what construction was to be put by ministers on this paper. Castlereagh replied that the decree was a trick disgraceful to any civilized government, and contained nothing to satisfy the conditions required by England. Apart from the subordinate detail that his view of the decree was correct, his remarks meant nothing. The alarm caused by news that Congress had imposed an embargo as the last step before war, the annoyance created by John Henry’s revelations and Castlereagh’s lame defence, the weight of evidence pressing on Parliament against the Orders in Council, the absence of a strong or permanent Ministry,--these influences, gaining from day to day, forced the conviction that a change of system must take place. June 8 Lord Liverpool announced that he had formed an Administration, and would deal in due course with the Orders in Council. June 16 Brougham made his motion for a repeal of the orders. When he began his speech he did not know what part the new Ministry would take, but while he unfolded his long and luminous argument he noticed that James Stephen failed to appear in the House. This absence could mean only that Stephen had been deserted by ministers; and doubt ceased when Brougham and Baring ended, for then Lord Castlereagh--after Perceval’s death the leader of the House--rose and awkwardly announced that the Government, though till within three or four days unable to deliberate on the subject, had decided to suspend immediately the Orders in Council.