Wise entered the navy on 7 February 1797 on the frigate Astraea under his uncle Richard Dacres, and served, for the most part, with him on the home station, the coast of France, and in the West Indies.

At that time his uncle Vice Admiral James Dacres was second in command on the Jamaica station, serving under Sir John Thomas Duckworth and flying his flag in the Franchise.

On 2 December 1814 he captured the Leo, an American privateer of 6 guns and 76 men, near Cape Spartel[9][10] On 27 August 1816 in Granicus he was with Admiral Lord Exmouth at the Bombardment of Algiers.

[11] A contemporary wrote of the action: "The Granicus and Hebrus frigates, and the smaller vessels (except the bombs) being considered in the light of a corps-de-reserve, had not had any particular stations assigned to them, but were to bring up abreast of any openings they could find in the line of battle.

Impelled onward by the ardent desire of filling the first of these openings, the Hebrus got becalmed by the heavy cannonade, and was obliged to anchor a little without the line, on the Queen Charlotte's larboard quarter.

As, owing to the dense smoke which prevailed, nothing beyond the distance of a cable's length could be seen, except the Queen Charlotte's mast-head flag, Captain Wise allowed 10 minutes to elapse for the ships to anchor.

The Granicus then filled, let fall her fore-sail, set top-gallant-sails, and, soon gaining fresh way, steered straight for a beacon that, phoenix-like, seemed to live in the hottest of the fire.

With a display of intrepidity and of seamanship alike unsurpassed, Captain Wise anchored his frigate in a space scarcely exceeding her own length between the Queen Charlotte and Superb; a station of which a three-decked line-of-battle ship might justly have been proud.

The paintings are all essentially similar to the one Luny did for Lord Exmouth that now hangs in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, the main dereferences being each particular Captain's vessel is centre stage.

In testimony of his generous and unremitting exertions, regardless of all personal hazard, in behalf of the necessitous and afflicted, during the prevalence of Malignant Cholera in Plymouth 1832, Presented and inscribed by his fellow townsmen.