It is possible that Macedo was recruited to assist the more experienced members in gathering new documents dispersed throughout the kingdom. So much so that in the fourth volume of the Colecção de Inéditos Portugueses [Collection of Portuguese Unpublished Works] (1816), Costa de Macedo, along with Francisco Nunes Franklin, a student of palaeography and future oficial-mor [chief officer] of the Torre do Tombo—assisted the permanent academic commission on the History of Portugal. This commission included veteran scholars such as Caetano do Amaral, João Pedro Ribeiro, Francisco Ribeiro dos Guimarães, and Aragão Morato. The purpose of this commission was to "publish the previously unpublished documents that are scattered throughout the Kingdom's main registry offices," thereby continuing the Academy's efforts that began even before 1790 (Colecção de Livros Inéditos... , t. IV, 1816, pp. VII e XXXVI). Costa de Macedo's cultural profile and professional career exemplify the role of history in the institutional culture of the State, particularly in its political and legal applications. His work underscores how history was utilised in fields such as diplomacy and within institutions like the Academy of Sciences and the Royal Treasury.

Years later, in 1819, Macedo published a text on the geography and history of the Portuguese discoveries, which he had originally presented at the Academy on 24 June 1816. This period coincided with the final years of the pioneering António Ribeiro dos Santos and occurred shortly before the death of Mendo Trigoso, the first director of the Colecção de Notícias para a História e Geografia das Nações Ultramarinas [Collection of News for the History and Geography of the Overseas Nations] (initial volumes, hb1812 and 1821). This was a study entitled: Memória sobre as verdadeiras épocas em que principiaram as nossas navegações [Memoir on the True Eras When Our Navigations Began] , which should be the first of many Memórias para a história das navegações e descobrimentos portugueses [Memoirs for the History of Portuguese Navigations and Discoveries]. In this work, Macedo sought to downplay the significance of the early Henrican discoveries along the African coast by highlighting scattered medieval documents that suggested a Portuguese expedition had already discovered the Canary Islands in 1336. In this way, he would anticipate the true period of the beginning of the Portuguese discoveries (as he highlighted in the title). To a certain extent, Macedo sought to innovate and create a distinctive position for himself in national studies on the geography and history of the discoveries, in contrast to the well-established figures of Ribeiro dos Santos and Mendes Trigoso, that in Memórias de Literatura [Memoirs of Literature] (1806) and História e Memórias [History and Memoirs]… (1817) had revitalised the theses of the primacy of Portuguese discoveries over other European nations. In one of these texts, António Ribeiro dos Santos placed special emphasis on the figure and achievements of Prince Henry the Navigator (Memórias de Literatura... , tome VIII, part I, 1812, pp. 153-160). Garção Stockler did the same in a work published in Paris in 1819, the Ensaio histórico sobre a origem e progressos das matemáticas em Portugal [Historical Essay on the Origin and Progress of Mathematics in Portugal] (pp. 14-17 and 22). It is possible that Macedo intended to specialise in medieval and Renaissance geography, as suggested by his promise of new Memórias para a história e navegações dos descobrimentos portugueses . However, this did not materialise in the short term, possibly due to personal reasons, criticism of his theses, and perhaps the political and social changes that occurred in August 1820, which led him to redirect his focus of study and reflection.

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