Yoshida Kiyonari

In 1865, Yoshida was sent with Sameshima Naonobu and seventeen other samurai from Satsuma Domain to England to study Western science and technology.[1]: 79 During 1867, Yoshida and Sameshima travelled with two others to the United States and joined the Brotherhood of the New Life, Thomas Lake Harris's Christian spiritual group.[1]: 80 When they returned to England later that year, they claimed to have felt the presence of God through Harris' preaching in New York.[1]: 60 He transferred to the Foreign Ministry,[1]: 60 and in January 1874 he was appointed "extraordinary envoy and plenipotentiary minister" to the United States.[2]: 143 He became friends with the historian Henry Adams, with whom he shared an interest in archaic law.