John Finch (1791–1854), geologist, was born in Staffordshire, England, the grandson of TJ’s correspondent Joseph Priestley. A member of the Birmingham Philosophical Society, he arrived in the United States from London early in 1823 and spent nearly nine years traveling the continent and delivering lectures on geology and mineralogy in such cities as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore. Finch visited Montpellier and Monticello in 1824, and he published several scientific articles in the American Journal of Science and Arts. He returned to England in 1831 and lived for a time in Bristol before settling permanently in London. There in 1833 Finch published his Travels in the United States of America and Canada. The 1851 census gave his occupation as “Author History Science &c” (Tony Rail, “Biographical notes for William Steill Brown” [2012 typescript in UkOxU-HM], pp. 17–20; Finch’s 17 Sept. 1791 birth certificate, 24 June 1802 [Tr in UkNA: PRO RG 5/26, General Register Office]; New-York Evening Post, 22 Feb. 1823; Philadelphia Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 4 June 1823, 5 Apr. 1825, 9 Apr. 1827; Boston Daily Advertiser, 27 Oct. 1823; Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Advertiser, 5 Feb. 1824; Madison, Papers, Retirement Ser. description begins William T. Hutchinson, Robert A. Rutland, John C. A. Stagg, and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison, 1962– : Congress. Ser., Pres. Ser., Retirement Ser., Sec. of State Ser. description ends , 3:224–6; Finch’s Account of a Visit to Monticello, [before 5 Apr. 1824]; UkNA: England census, Middlesex, 1851; UkLoLMA: Highgate Cemetery of Saint James, London, Burial Register, 1854, p. 85).

The two pamphlets, both as yet unpublished, were versions of works Cooper later published. The first was printed as part of a larger treatise, Two Tracts: on the proposed Alteration of the Tariff; and On Weights & Measures (Charleston, S.C., 1823; TJ’s copy in MH; inscribed by Cooper: “To Thomas Jefferson with the author’s affectionate respects”), with the portion on tariffs printed separately in the Richmond Enquirer, 25, 28 Nov. 1823, and in Cooper, A Tract on the Proposed Alteration of the tariff, submitted to the consideration of the Members from South Carolina, in the ensuing Congress of 1823–4 (Charleston, S.C., 1823; repr. Philadelphia, 1824). In this essay Cooper opposed a protective system by laying out fifteen points in support of his opinion that the tariff would be detrimental to American commerce and that its enactment by Congress would constitute “unequal and discretionary taxation” (Philadelphia ed., p. 4), and concluded that increased tariffs threatened southern agricultural interests “not with taxation, but destruction” (p. 27). Cooper’s second work, first published as the work of “A Layman” with no listed publisher, was The Scripture Doctrine of Materialism (Philadelphia, 1823; Poor, Jefferson’s Library, 9 [no. 492]), in which he asserted that “The Scripture Doctrine of the Resurrection is what is now called Materialism: and that it is inconsistent with the notion of a Separate, Immaterial, and Immortal Soul” (p. 16).

egyptian darkness: in the Bible, the ninth plague inflicted by God when the pharoah would not free the Israelites was “a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt” that lasted for three days (Exodus 10.21–9).

The five pamphlets attacking Cooper have not been identified, but he attributed at least one to United States Supreme Court justice William Johnson, who denied the claim. Cooper vigorously defended his theological beliefs and opinions from such charges and attacked Johnson in his turn in a letter to a Columbia newspaper reprinted in the Charleston City Gazette, 19 Apr. 1823.

presentation against me: a letter to one newspaper complained of “inquisitorial” behavior by South Carolina grand juries complaining to the legislature, reporting that “The Grand Jury of York have presented Dr. Cooper as unpopular—as being cried out against, and as the cause of fears in the minds of parents, lest if their children should go to Columbia, their morals might be endangered, and concluding with the humble request that Dr. Cooper be removed. This vague and indefinite presentment, without any change [i.e., charge]—without any, even the shadow, of evidence of any kind, was ordered by the Senate to lie on the table, after receiving the castigation it deserved” (Charleston Courier, 1 Dec. 1823).

les hommes noirs: literally, “the black men,” possibly here meaning “men in black robes,” i.e., the clergy.