Gold coins. This is also a piece of English slang.
1841. This was the currency, or what is its equivalent, and what the modern Whigs deride, and sneeringly call the “Tom Benton humbug,” I mean the yellow boys.—Mr. Duncan of Ohio, House of Repr., Jan. 26: Cong. Globe, p. 157, App.
1841. Mr. Henry Clay alluded to the “Jackson notions of yellow-boy currency.”—U.S. Senate, July 7: id., p. 129.
1861.
| Now I hain’t seen one in six munts, for, sence our Treashry Loan, | |
| Though yaller boys [mulattoes] is thick enough, eagles hez kind o’ flown. | |
Lowell, ‘Biglow Papers,’ 2nd Series, No. 1. |
