Thomas Jefferson took note of the moral courage and the loyalty to race evident throughout the whole of Banneker's remarkable letter and he honored it with the most courteous reply, under date of August 30, 1791. After thanking Banneker for the letter and the almanac accompanying it, Jefferson expressed the pleasure it afforded him to see such proofs "that nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America." He also added that he desired "ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body and mind to what it ought to be." The copy sent to Jefferson was formally transmitted to M. de Condorcet, secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic Society because, as he said, he "considered it a document to which your whole race had a right for its justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them." This recognition of Banneker's merit very naturally added greatly to his rapidly growing reputation at home, and brought to him hundreds of letters of congratulation from scholarly men throughout the civilized world. The most distinguished honor that came to him from his own countrymen was the invitation to serve with the commission appointed by President Washington to define the boundary line and lay out the streets of the Federal Territory, later called the District of Columbia. This commission, was appointed by Washington, in 1789, and was composed of David Stuart, Daniel Carroll, Thomas Johnson, Andrew Ellicott and Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, a famous French engineer. This personnel was given in the article on Benjamin Banneker by John R. Slattery in the _Catholic World_ in 1883,[169] but in the _Washington Evening Star_ of October 15, 1916, reporting an address by Fred Woodward, the commission was said to consist of "Major L'Enfant, Andrew Ellicott, Count de Graff, Isaac Roberdeau, William King, Nicholas King, and Benjamin Banneker, a free Negro."[170] It is on record that it was at the suggestion of his friend, Major Andrew Ellicott, who so thoroughly appreciated the value of his scientific attainments, that Thomas Jefferson nominated Banneker and Washington appointed him a member of the commission. In the Georgetown _Weekly Ledger_, of March 12, 1791, reference is made to the arrival at that port of Ellicott and L'Enfant, who were accompanied by "Benjamin Banneker, an Ethiopian whose abilities as surveyor and astronomer already prove that Mr. Jefferson's concluding that that race of men were void of mental endowment was without foundation."[171]