For much of the first half of the eighteenth century the Company had enjoyed quieter times than in the seventeenth, usually delivering healthy dividends to the shareholders, a pillar of the City with friends at Westminster and a valued role in the British economy; and, out in India, cultivating stable but uninvolved political relations with the local authorities. Then, for the following forty years it found itself in a turbulent political sea, lurching militarily between disaster and triumph in India, but overall progressing to become a major player on the Indian political scene, while back in Britain its grand strategic purpose and direction on the subcontinent made the Directors increasingly uneasy and queried in political circles at Westminster. The Company was uncertain of its political future in both realms and prey to, and corrupted by, exaggerated expectations of wealth by servants and investors. The Directors sensed that they were losing control over the Company's financial affairs both in terms of extraordinary military costs in India and reckless shareholder power in London. Clive, who had inadvertently opened the gates for possible unlimited expansion by his success at Plassey, tried in his second administration (1765-6) to rein in such expectations and to stabilise relations with client princes and neighbouring ‘country’ powers.