The pilots, however, made objection to carrying the flagship into the river. It was impossible, they said, to get so big a ship over the Braces, the belt of shoals across the mouth of the Hooghly on the Balasore side, with the tides as they were. They doubted, indeed, if it could be done at all, even at spring tides. On the usual “crossing track” over the Western Brace, the deepest channel, they said, was only three fathoms. But Admiral Watson had made up his mind to try. On the pilots finally declining to assist in taking the flagship into the river Captain Speke, the captain of the _Kent_, volunteered to make the attempt. He had been up the Hooghly once before, and he could, he believed, find a channel deep enough to carry the _Kent_ over the Braces. The _Tyger_ was to remain behind to bring on the rest of the squadron on their arrival. The flagship set out, after a week’s further detention at Balasore owing to strong north easterly winds, her boats towing her. Captain Speke navigated the ship, and with such success that a channel was found through the Western Brace that gave four fathoms of water at half-tide. It proved sufficient to float the ship over safely. On the 12th of December, they were at anchor off Kedgeree (Khichri), sixty-seven miles from Fort William by water. After this the wind changed to westerly and the _Kent_ was able to work up the estuary under sail. Fulta was reached on the 15th, and the rescue of the fugitives from Calcutta effected. Major Kilpatrick and his men were found there, and the _Kingfisher_. The flagship herself had on board two hundred and fifty men of the 39th Foot under Captain Eyre Coote, afterwards the celebrated General Sir Eyre Coote. There was also a detachment of Sepoys, who had arrived two days before by the _Protector_, a Bombay cruiser, which had touched at Madras just after the squadron left there, and had since got ahead of them. At Fulta Governor Drake, the ex-Governor of Calcutta, came on board to see the Admiral. The _Tyger_ reached Fulta on the 16th, and the _Salisbury_ and the rest of the men-of-war and the Indiamen with the troops on board, between then and the 26th. The _Cumberland_ and the _Marlborough_ Indiaman were still missing. The tides, meanwhile, were too low to allow any of the ships to cross the sand-bar above Fulta and proceed further up the Hooghly until after the 27th.