One returned from the East Indies with but a moderate fortune of fifty or sixty thousand pounds, a diminutive nabob: a term borrowed from the chicken turtle.
Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose.
chicken-hearted * childNathan Bailey's 1721 Dictionary of canting and thieving slang
John S. Farmer's collection of canting songs and slang rhymes