It is important to remember that Hume approached the problem of free will from a moral rather than a scientific point of view. In his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Hume establishes that causation in never directly experienced but then goes on to argue that some degree of causation is essential for moral responsibility to have any meaning.
For Hume the key attribute to free will was 'will' or 'desire'. We are morally responsible for those actions which we actively will or desire but we are not responsible for any actions that we are constrained to do. As he says
By liberty, then we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may. Now this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to everyone who is not a prisoner and in chains.
Hume argues that we do not need to take moral responsibility for actions that are externally caused but that we do need to be responsible for internally caused (or willed) actions. Thus I am not to blame if I kick a puppy because a madman with a gun tells me to do it, but I am to blame if I spontaneously decide to kick the puppy. There are problems with this distinction however – it is possible to act according to the determination one's will but still be unfree as in the case of the drug addict or the kleptomaniac; which ‘internal’ causes should be regarded as ‘compelling’ in such cases?
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