General Burgoyne's expedition ended seven miles north of here when, outnumbered and surrounded, he surrendered his army of 7,400 on October 17, 1777 in Saratoga, present-day Schuylerville. These prisoners represented about a sixth of the British forces then serving in North America, and for the first time in world history, an entire British army was taken captive. This defeat stunned Great Britain. France then recognized an independent United States and signed a formal alliance. Soon Spain, the Netherlands, and Mysore in India also went to war against the British Empire. To end an unsustainable world war against all five nations, the British government recognized the independence of the United States in 1783.