By the end of the eighteenth-century the social pattern of the Azores islands was still a reproduction of the traditional three estates in the kingdom of Portugal. During the captaincy-general’s regime introduced by Pombal in 1766, central government urged local authorities to strictly adhere to the principles requiring nobility status as a precondition to occupy military ranks as officers in the line army and militia as well, and also to be elected to the municipalities. Reports sent to the kingdom by the captain-general on the performance of local authorities and military officers show an obvious contradition when one compares its praising statements with the strong criticism found in other sources. Those reports show for a good deal of situations that a substantial part of the office-holders did not comply with the rules of law in what concerns its requirements. As a conclusion one may say that in the smaller islands of the Azores, namely the island of Faial, the social structure was unable to provide military needs and posts in the administration according to the standards of nobility as required by the crown. Under the circumstances the Azorean traditional society was indeed a “non-typical society” in a time of transition.