On the other hand, Mazepa was a true hetman of the later type. He was not in general on good terms with the leaders of the Zaporozhian Sich, who claimed to speak for the common Kozaks, and emphasized in their turbulent way the last elements of that democracy that had characterized the entire Host of a century earlier. Mazepa found his chief elements of support in the officers of the Kozak Host and he relied upon the gifts of the Tsar to these men to maintain their loyalty to him. For his protection he trusted chiefly to his mercenary forces, on whose continued loyalty he could count for financial reasons. His ambition was to be recognized as the master of Ukraine, perhaps the King of a subservient state, and his ambitions perhaps went no further than to hold the same position toward Moscow as the princes of Georgia and other bordering vassal states. His role was far different from that of the older hetmans who had felt themselves owing no responsibility except to God and the assembly of the Host. He himself owed supreme allegiance to the Tsar and he demanded the same loyalty to himself. The policy of Mazepa naturally did not make him friends among the ordinary Kozaks who bitterly denounced him and his officers for their high-handed actions. Yet when Petryk tried to secure the aid of the Zaporozhian Sich against him and also secured recognition from the Turks and Tatars, very few joined him and Mazepa was able to weather the storm without difficulty. Yet Mazepa was something more than a mere supporter of the Tsar. His friend Kochubey denounced him to Peter for writing a poem glorifying the independence of Ukraine and visualizing the hetman as an autocratic and independent monarch. Peter laughed at the accusations and merely condemned Kochubey to death when he added other insinuations against the loyalty of the hetman. Kochubey was probably right. Mazepa ardently desired to see Ukraine free but he was too well aware of the abuses of the past to risk a struggle under the old manners and customs of the hetmanate. He apparently had convinced himself and his friends that Ukraine could only recover its liberty under an absolute monarch and he intended to be that man.