Wiselius was a witty, Voltairian spirit with political views far ahead of his time who would end his days writing dramas on Classical themes.

Samuel was born in Amsterdam, the only son of the oil merchant Iperus Wiselius, himself a Patriot and a captain in the civic guard, promoted to colonel in May 1787.

[7] When French troops had approached the rivers Rhine and Meuse in November 1794, the Patriots started to prepare for a revolution and to stockpile weapons.

The hiding place was discovered, and Jacobus van Staphorst and Cornelis Rudolphus Theodorus Krayenhoff had to leave the city to avoid being captured.

He distanced himself clearly from the Union of Utrecht, which in his view was only "a weak, barely coherent, and in many senses useless treaty violated almost daily" (een zwak, weinig samenhangend, veelszins nutteloos en schier dagelijks geschonden tractaat).

[9] The vast powers which the Provincial States (the highest authorities in the provinces) had wielded over the past two hundred years were to be reduced to those of mere clerical institutions.

[10] In 1796 he was appointed one of the twenty-eight members of the Committee on the East-Indies Trade and Possessions (Comité tot den Oost-Indischen Handel en Bezittingen), along with Wybo Fijnje, with whom he quarrelled two years later.

The Dutch East India Company was nationalised, its so-called Outer Chambers in Middelburg, Delft, Enkhuizen and Hoorn closed down and its surplus employees dismissed.

[12] As a result, Wiselius was not re-appointed as one of the nine members of the Council of Asian Possessions and Establishments (Raad van Aziatische Bezittingen en Etablissementen).

Left without a post, Wiselius now devoted himself to his private interests: the history of Ancient Greece and of the city of Amsterdam, and writing plays and poems, living in his country house at the borders of the River Vecht.

[14] It was long suggested that it was Wiselius, not Maria Aletta Hulshoff, who wrote the radical pamphlet entitled Oproeping aan het Bataafse volk ("An Appeal to the Batavian People").

[18] Wiselius showed him the largest room of his house, with a view on the park and five enormous fixed paintings: hunting scenes by Jan Weenix.

In 1835, as the head of the police, Wiselius was involved in controlling the tax revolts, organized by house owners at Herenmarkt square and in the Jordaan neighbourhood.