Although they had converted to Christianity, his family, the da Costas, came from a long line of Sephardic Jews who were active in Portugal, England and the West Indies.

[1] In 1777, the family moved to Pelotas, in Rio Grande do Sul, where Costa would spend his adolescence, until he was sent to the University of Coimbra in 1798, where he graduated in Law, Philosophy and Mathematics.

Recently graduated, he was sent on diplomatic missions to the United States and Mexico by then-Portuguese prime minister Rodrigo de Sousa Coutinho.

However, three or four years later, when he returned to Brazil, he was arrested by the Portuguese Inquisition, by order of Pina Manique, since he was accused of spreading Masonic ideas through Europe.

He was buried in the church of Saint Mary the Virgin, in Hurley, Berkshire, but in 2001 his remains were brought to Brazil, and can now be found at the Museu da Imprensa Nacional.