Diplomat. In 1865, he entered the University of London as a student studying abroad from the Satsuma domain. Visited the United States in 1868, and after returning to Japan worked as a gaikoku gonnohanji (assistant judicial officer of the Foreign Affairs Office). In 1871 he worked in France as a shobenmushi (lesser commissioner). He became the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to France in 1874. He also served as the Envoy to France and to Belgium, and the Minister to Portugal and to Spain, before dying in Paris.