Complimenting one's judges or hearers to win their confidence. So Northumberland to the future Henry IV:
Believe me, noble lord,
I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire
And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,
Making the hard way sweet and delectable.
(Richard II, II, iii)
A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, Second Edition, Richard A. Lanham, 1991