These Commissioners are not invested with judicial or even quasi-judicial authority. They are to act according to the best of their judgment for the promotion of the objects prescribed; and in the performance of their duty they may enter into reasonable negotiations and contracts, which will bind them, and hold good permanently, unless subsequently displaced under the statutory provisions.

Where the Commissioners had accepted an offer made to arrest litigation; where the acceptance was carried by only fourteen votes against thirteen; and where they afterwards repudiated the contract as likely to prove injurious to the public interest — the House (reversing the decree below) decreed a specific performance, on the ground that the party with whom the agreement was made had relied and had acted upon it, and that they were bound by it.