"It is, if I may so express myself without disrespect, the duty of the Sovereign to confer the peerage as the reward of merit, or the incitement to great and good actions, or for the public benefit, as a mode of placing the individual in a better position to render public service. To suppose, then, that the Sovereign will be at all influenced by any other motives in the exercise of this most important prerogative is indecent, and, in a legal sense, unreasonable."