Joel Barlow 1778

Mode of exit: Transferred to Yale

Career: Diplomat, satirist

Notable achievements: Bargained with the Dey of Algiers for release of American seamen held in slavery by Barbary pirates; wrote an epic poem on hastypudding

Barlow served as a chaplain in George Washington's army during the Revolution, and later became a shipping broker and political pamphleteer. He went to France for a visit in 1789 and ended up staying, cm and off, for 17 years long enough to help Robert Fulton launch his first steamboat on the Seine arid to witness the French Revolution and the Terror up close. The experience, he wrote later, made him a "broadminded cosmopolitan."

In 1796, President Washington sent Barlow to Africa in an effort to secure the release of enslaved American seamen. Barlow's diplomatic skills were again called on just before the outbreak of the War of 1812, when he attempted to mediate a dispute between France and the United, States. Federalists called the effort "traitorous."