Hayashi Tadasu was a career diplomat and cabinet minister in Meiji period Japan.
Background
Hayashi was born on April, 11, 1850 in Sakura city, Japan, the son of Satō Taizen, a physician practicing "Dutch medicine" for the Sakura Domain. He was adopted as a child by Hayashi Dokai, a physician in the service of the Tokugawa shogunate, from whom he received the family name "Hayashi", but he sometimes referred to himself as "Satō Tosaburō".
Education
Hayashi learned English at the Hepburn Academy in Yokohama (the forerunner of Meiji Gakuin University). From 1866 to 1868, Hayashi studied in Great Britain at University College School and King's College London as one of fourteen young Japanese students sent by the Tokugawa government on the advice of the then British foreign minister Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby.
Career
Hayashi returned on the eve of the abolition of the Shogunale, and followed Enomoto when the latter, sailing with the Tokugawa fleet to Yezo, attempted to establish a republic there in defiance of the newly organized government of the emperor. Thrown into prison on account of this affair, Hayashi did not obtain office until 1871. Thereafter he rose rapidly, until, after a long period of service as vice-minister of foreign affairs, he was appointed to represent his country first in Beijing, then in St Petersburg and finally in London, where he acted an important part in negotiating the first Anglo-Japanese Alliance, for which service he received the title of viscount. He remained in London throughout the Russo-Japanese War, and was the first Japanese ambassador at the court of St James after the war. Returning to Tokyo in 1906 to take the portfolio of foreign affairs, he remained in office until the resignation of the Saionji cabinet in 1908. He was raised to the rank of count for eminent services performed during the war between his country and Russia, and in connexion with the second Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1905. Hayashi died on July 10, 1913.