The clash, it seemed probable, would come first in Texas, far from our centres of strength. On that field Tornel, the keenest public man in the country, insisted that Mexico could triumph over any force we could bring to bear, and Almonte offered some reasons for entertaining such an opinion. The Texan troops, he said, would exhaust their supplies before the campaign would really begin; and consequently, since there would be no way to subsist a large American force in that extensive, poor and sparsely settled region, the greater the number coming, the greater would be their sufferings. Even the cultivated districts, wrote Elliot, could support only a trifling addition, if any, to the resident population. Moreover, even should an American army be able to exist there, a few light troops placed along the frontier would keep it busy on the defensive, said Pakenham; while it was urged by Mexicans that, should our line break, their invading host would soon find itself among the opulent cities of the southern states, where perhaps it could not only exact money, but free two million slaves, obtain their grateful and enthusiastic assistance, enroll the Indians of the southwest, who detested the United States, and draw aid as well as encouragement from the abolitionists of the north. Almonte himself assured his government that the blacks, the savages and the anti-slavery extremists could be reckoned on.[5.10] Possibly, of course, their line instead of ours might be the one to give way; but in that case the Americans, instead of meeting with conditions like these, would be confronted by immense distances, great deserts, furious rains, long droughts, and barren, easily defended mountains. "If the war should be protracted and carried beyond the Rio Grande," said Captain Elliot, "I believe that it would require very little skill and scarcely any exposure of the defending force to draw the invading columns well forward beyond all means of support from their own bases and depots into situations of almost inextricable difficulty;" and a correspondent of Calhoun, referring to such natural obstacles, wrote, "nothing is more certain than your statement that [the] war will have to become defensive [on our part]."[5.11]