Benjamin Hughes delivered a funeral address for Wilberforce in New York City on October 22, 1833. Considered to be one of the most moving tributes to the great man's life and work, here is a small portion of that tribute.

"I present you no bloodstained hero; he has led no slaughtering armies, he has desolated no kingdoms; for him no triumphal arch is reared; his laurels have been won in another and nobler sphere. He was no aspirant to popular applause; no time serving politician; he was the friend of the "robbed and peeled"; emphatically one of the greatest men of modern times . . . the Hercules of Abolition." ~ Benjamin Hughes

"Wilberforce is one of the party called in derision the Saints . . . who under sanctified visors pursue worldly objects with the ardour and perserverance of saints."
~ John Quincy Adams

"I never saw you but once. That day you won my heart, and every honest heart in the country. I never felt the power of eloquence until that day. The contrast of your address, and the mellow tone of your voice with the bellowing, screaming attempts at speaking in some others, was most wonderful. You breathed energy and vigour into the souls of timid loyalists, and sent us home with joy and delight."
~ A York Constituent

William Lloyd Garrison visited Wilberforce shortly before his (Wilberforce's) death in 1833. Years later, he recalled his thought as he walked into the room and saw the great man reclining on a couch:

"I had instantly been struck with admiration, to think that so small a body could contain so large a mind!" ~ William Lloyd Garrison

Garrison later told a friend that the sight of the great man as he appeared in his old age, bent over and frail, had recalled this verse written by Isaac Watts. It seemed as though the verse had been written intentionally about William Wilberforce:

"Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul;
The mind's the standard of the man."
~ Isaac Watts

After Wilberforce's death, his two sons, Robert and Samuel, began to write a biography of their father. Thomas Clarkson responded to their request for information as follows:

"I am glad that you are going to write your Father's Life. Such a Life ought to be made known to instruct, but it will be a most laborious task . . . for his private life was as full of glorious labour and as splendid as his public one." ~ Thomas Clarkson