His next venture, and first choice of a profession, while he was still quite young, led him to engage in teaching. As an advertisement he placed a flag at the door of a house in which he rented a room, where he gave elementary instruction to such children as were entrusted to his tuition by the townspeople of Leicester. The experiment proved not very successful, and at the end of a twelvemonth he tried his fortune elsewhere. He next turned to commerce--at first in a humble fashion. His business prospered, and his next important undertaking was the establishment of a newspaper--the _Leicester Herald_. This journal was what is now called a “Liberal” paper. Yet by those who affected to identify the welfare of England with the continued existence of rotten boroughs and other corruptions, it was held up to opprobrium as revolutionary and “incendiary.” Phillips himself had the reputation of an able political writer; but the chief support of the journal was the celebrated Dr. Priestley, whose name and contributions gave it a reputation it otherwise might not have gained. The responsible editor did not escape the perils that then environed the denouncers of legal or social iniquity, and Phillips, convicted of a “misdemeanour,” was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in the Leicester jail. During his imprisonment he displayed the beneficence of his disposition in relieving the miseries of some of his more wretched companions. Upon his release, he sold his interest in the _Leicester Herald_, and for some time confined himself altogether to his business.