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The idea of consolidating unused documents from diplomatic offices into a single archive was only realised in 1950, during the final year of Caeiro da Mata’s second tenure as Foreign Minister (Order No. 13152 of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). However, throughout the second half of the 19th century, several series of books and documents from the Secretariat of State for Foreign Affairs had already been transferred to the National Archive of Torre do Tombo, then housed in the old monastery, currently the São Bento Palace. This collection comprised correspondence from that office and various Portuguese legations abroad, starting from the regency of D. Pedro and the signing of the Luso-Castilian peace treaty (1668). Although the documentation was rather incomplete for the period before the 1755 earthquake as a result of the fire that consumed the Paço da Ribeira, it was inventoried by Maria do Carmo Jasmins Dias Farinha (1990), but documents postdating 1833-34 remained within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The use of these records for historical research was authorised in 1921, however it was not until 1965 that access to these collections was granted, along with a recognition of the need to provide services for public access. Only after Portugal's accession to the European Union was there greater liberalisation of the General Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was renamed the Diplomatic Historical Archive. Its first regulations (1987) established a general rule of a minimum of 30 years from the document's date for consultation access. At that time, the Selection and Declassification Committee was also created.
Portuguese archives are extremely rich and fertile but remain scattered and somewhat unsystematised. Notably, despite the separation of the Secretariats of State for Foreign Affairs and War (1822), part of the documentation remained consolidated and was incorporated into the War Council section of the Torre do Tombo. This collection includes important sources for Portuguese diplomatic history, inventoried and classified (1866-89) by Captain Cláudio de Chaby, and completed by Madureira dos Santos (1957-68), resulting in a catalogue that includes all the decrees promulgated by the War Council from its creation (December 11-12, 1640) "to address matters related to war" until its dissolution (1 August 1834).
